Smoke and Mirrors
by DoflamingosForeheadVein
Summary: Remy Lockwood just turned 17. But she's felt like an adult for her entire life. One day, in a youthful spur of the moment, she decides to visit the fair. There, she meets a man named Corazon, their chemistry was instant, intense and short-lived. Just how she liked it: no strings attached. But she couldn't get the man who saw past her cynicism and bravado out of her head.
1. Chapter 1

I stood at the entrance of the fair gate, beer can in hand. God, would it be pathetic of me to go in there by myself? I took a generous sip of he cool, yeasty drink and when I had emptied it I threw it over my shoulder. I heard the joyous screams of the carny-goers fading in and out like an old radio station. I looked up to where the metallic curve of the infamous Deathsnake peaked, a hundred feet high.

"Don't be a pussy." I whispered to myself as my feet reluctantly took me forward. I sniffed in the salty-sweet air, tucking a strand of my dark hair behind my ear and grinning at the poor guy who was handing out flyers at the entrance. I chose to walk too close to him, our arms brushing against each other.

I felt his eyes linger on me as I continued on. Trailing slowly up my long (thank you mother), bare legs and resting on the round curve of my ass. I flicked a coy gaze over my shoulder and watched as his mouth dropped open.

Too easy.

What wasn't easy was actually making it up to the line for the death contraption- I mean roller-coaster. I swallowed dryly, rocking back and forth on my heels before finding the courage to line up.

You see, it all started when I was seven. My alcoholic mother dragged me to the fair this one late night when they had been packing away. Oh, but she insisted I ride the roller-coaster to make up for my shitty childhood. She slipped her hand on the carny's thigh, batted her eyelashes and voila, I was riding the Loopy-Loop. What she didn't account for was that the cheap junk would jerk to a stop halfway down the descent of a steep metal hill and as a result, I ended up breaking my collar bone.

Hard to do the housework when that's broken, mother.

"You getting on?" The carny said in a voice as dead as his future. I handed him my ticket.

Fucking assholes. Everybody had filled up every other car but the very front one. I turned around and thought about running but fuck it, I was already here and I couldn't chicken out in front of these people. So, I turned back and climbed into the car.

Worst case-scenario: I plummet to my death.

Best case-scenario: I close my eyes and in four minutes it'll be over and I get a new hairdo.

Somebody climbed in next to me. It was a guy. A very hot guy.

Revised worst case-scenario: I throw up on him and we both die.

"You must be a veteran," He smiled, a friendly smile that was so bright I blinked blankly. "Riding up the front."

"It's my first time." Well, on my own terms. We both reached up and pulled the bar over us.

He smiled again, his face lighting up like a camera flash. "Mine too."

The Deathsnake lurched forward, our ride toward doom finally beginning. It was deceivingly slow at first, grinding along the steel hill. I looked at the guy, who was looking out at the confetti of carny lights below us. I looked too and was surprised that the distance rendered the ugly, weirdness of the fair magical. But my attention was split. I kept cutting back to his face. His jaw line was sharp, setting his face with masculinity, the red glow beneath us painting the underside of his face. When he tilted his head I caught a brief glimpse of his sparkly blue eyes, hidden beneath a sea of his golden shaggy hair.

When he looked at me I cut my view away.

"What a view." He said.

"Tell me about it..." I mumbled. I could feel his smile.

"Oh shit-"

And we dropped.

~·~

Now, I'm not going to do the whole we-fell-in-love metaphor. I didn't fall in love with him. I didn't even know what love was, really. Heck, I'm a teenage girl. I fell in love with a cat in a raincoat just this morning-hardly an expert. But, when we crested the first peak and the world sprawled beneath us in a hazy sea of carny lights and we plummeted toward it at light speed, we spontaneously and simultaneously reached for each other's hands.

I felt something had never felt before. You can call it love or you can call it free fall. They were pretty much the same thing.

~·~

We glided to a stop. I looked up at him with a shit-eating grin which he wore too. While I was sure my hair looked like I had stuck my finger in a power socket, his was merely wind-whipped, framing his face handsomely.

"We're alive!" He said exclaimed. I laughed.

He climbed out of the car and turned back, offering a helping hand. I took it and felt a surge of heat radiate up my arm when our hands touched again. God, that was great. Not once did I think about my mother or all the shitty things that made up my childhood. For once, it was just fun.

I didn't realise he still held my hand until I felt him drag me down the set of stairs. He stopped and let my hand go which made me a little disappointed. He looked at me and grinned.

"Thanks." I said.

"For what?"

"Helping me lose my roller-coaster virginity." I grinned and he smiled coyly, shoving his hands into his pockets and rocking back and forth on his heels.

"How old are?" And there it was. The million dollar question. The corner of my mouth curved up.

"Old enough." I loved what their faces did when I said this. Old enough to...fill in the blank.

"I don't want your parents to think I'm some kind of creep."

"What parents? I'm here alone." He half smiled then leaned in closer toward me like he was looking at a stray lash. I froze, all of the high of our thrill-ride seizing up on me. "What are you doing?" I breathed. A second later he reclined back.

"Oh, green." He half smiled again. "I wanted to know the colour of your eyes."

"Why? So the police can identify my body later?" He laughed, thankfully.

"So," He inhaled. "You don't think I'm a creep?" I shook my head. "You wanna go try something else out?" I nodded.

Oh yes.

~·~

After a few rides, with him screaming and me laughing at him screaming, he went and got us a beer and we walked out toward some dimly lit picnic table. I climbed up and seated myself on he table while he sat beside me on the seat below. I could feel his body heat radiating from him against my bare legs and I shivered.

I watched as a he took a generous sip, setting his drink aside and leaning back on the table with his elbows. His shoulders were wide and broad, every limb of his long and lean. My eyes trailed down his arms to his hands, god, they were big and masculine in every sense. He must have felt me staring and he looked up at me, only this time, I didn't loom away.

"Why'd you come alone?" He asked.

Ah, because I don't have friends and I'm kind of a basket case. But I won't tell you that because that won't get you to fuck me-which, I wanted very badly right now. If only he'd just wedge himself between my legs and devour me right here, right now...

"I just wanted to have fun. What about you?" I said, an answer fairly vague. He smiled, that pop of blinding light flashing before me. His head snapped back and his eyes stared at the inky black night sky blanketed with a thousand sparkling stars. The glow of the moon illuminated his face, and my heart picked up in speed.

"I came with my younger brother and his...his er..boyfriend?" Oh, younger, gay brother, interesting. "I'm not sure if they're exclusive or not but they took off anyway. I'm alone too." He chuckled, scratched the back of his head and then sighed. "It kinda feels like the world knows how to be happy and they won't let me in on the secret."

There were those once-in-a-blue-moon moments when you meet a perfect stranger and feel like you have known them your whole, miserable life. You get to know each other and you see something buried deep inside them that you have buried deep inside of you too. This was one of those moments.

"Bastards." I said, nudging my foot against his hip. He laughed, his head tilting back to look at me.

"I'm starting a new job. I'm kinda nervous, and I thought I could cancel it out with riding the roller-coaster."

"How'd that work out?" I said, not intentionally lacing my tone with cynicism.

"It was a temporary relief. What about you? You live here?"

"Yeah, I'm kind of starting a new job too," Yeah, my senior year... "An unpaid internship."

"You scared?"

"Of course." I shifted closer to him but I don't remember when.

"God, you look stunning." He breathed, his eyes fighting the urge to look at my legs. I felt giddy. His attention was delightful and I craved more of it. So, I looked down at him with a half-lidded gaze and pouty lips-that fuck-me look that I used every time.

"You too."

He made a breathy chuckle and got up from the seat, turning back and offering me his hand. "I'll take you home."

~·~

We got to his car. An old Chevy Monte Carlo built before I was even born. It looked like something from a Tarantino film, really. He was quite chivalrous, opening my door and closing it behind me. The front seat was a large stretch of tan leather which smelled dizzyingly masculine. I raked my fingers through my hair as he walked around to the other side, trying to bring some order to it. I managed to steal a quick glance at my reflection before he got in and was somewhat satisfied.

"Where do you live?" I was sure I heard him ask but I couldn't hear well with the blood rushing behind my ears. I dent know why I felt so...shy. Perhaps it was because we were in a closed space, just me and him with metal and glass sealing us off from the rest of the world. I breathed heavy.

He noticed, his hands slipping from the steering wheel and his body angling in my direction.

We met halfway.

~·~

Before this goes any further, I should probably mention that I've slept with older men before. Sometimes twice my age. My school counselor put it down to my father abandoning me at two but shit, I couldn't put all the blame on him. I hold the reigns my own fate and all that jazz but still, fuck you dad.

I still reckon I would do it even if I had a normal childhood. Teenage boys were like sensitive car alarms, even a gentle breeze would set them off. I would know, I lost my virginity to one in freshman year. I didn't even realise when he came, I thought he was still trying to get it in. Next time will be better, I thought. The next guy lasted 34 seconds, I know, because I counted.

So, when some twenty-something year old guy at the service station gave me a little attention I went and fucked him. He made sure that I came first and bought me a burger before taking me home. I could get used to this, I thought. And I did.

~·~

I thought our kiss would be frantic and urgent but it wasn't. It was soft and restrained. All the urgency went to our hands which were perched on each other's shoulders like talons. My heart was ecstatic. He wanted this as much as I wanted it and I tried very hard not to fuck it up, to turn it into another drunk, sloppy hookup. I kissed him slowly, indulgently, feeling the satin flesh of his lips against mine and the faint grizzle of his stubbled cheek made for an interesting contrast.

His hand circled my skull, pulling me closer to him and It took serious willpower to go slowly. I tilted my head at just the right angle to his, opening my mouth for his tongue. God, when had I last been kissed like this? Had I ever? It felt like being fucked, only slowly, sweetly and more personally. The blood in my veins glowed like those red neon lights at the fair.

He pulled away and I felt dazed and very, very confused when he did. He looked at me, his fingers caressing my hair. "You really are beautiful." And there goes my self restraint. I yanked on his collar and pulled him toward me. This time our kiss was urgent and needy, lips moving in a bruising way and teeth clashing. I lowered myself along the sticky leather seat and his weight rested atop me. I felt his knee come up and wedge between my legs.

I reached for his zipper when he said, "Wait," He pulled away, again, and looked down at me. "I don't want this to be just a hookup. I want to know you."

I leaned up and pressed my lips along his jaw line, my wicked fingers weaving into that luscious hair of his and forcing him to kiss me. "Then, get to know me," I ran my tongue along the shell of his ear and whispered hotly, "Physically." He complied to my demand and kissed me back with the same fervor. He peeled off my sticky shirt, then my shorts and he moved up, undoing my bra. I gasped when his hot mouth pressed into the skin between my breasts, and again when he sucked on my nipple. God, his tongue... I was so easily robbed of the ability to speak anything coherent when he worked me with those lips. I never wanted to run out of clothes with the way he removed an article of clothing and explored the revealed skin with his mouth and hands.

I reached for his zipper, he didn't stop me. Nor did he prevent me from popping his button and slipping my hand around his dick. I shivered at the contact.

There was something so final about this moment. When you feel their piece and you know they're going to fuck you with it. I couldn't help but grin at the thought, my fingers running up and down his thick length. He was entire degrees hotter here than any where else on his body.

He groaned into our kiss, his thumbs hooking into my underwear. He peeled them down and left it around my ankles before reaching into the glove box. He offered me the little foil package and I accepted with a grin. I tore it open and rolled the protective rubber down his engorged flesh.

He leaned into me and kissed my collar bone and I sucked in a sharp breath as he slid his dick along me, cruelly letting me feel the length of him. "Tell me your name." He whispered into my hair, sending a wave of electricity rippling across my scalp. "I want to know your name." He said, closer toward my ear.

Jesus, he was making this real.

I ground my hips up against him and we both winced at the shock of pleasure but he still wouldn't fuck me.

"Tell me," He said, firmly this time.

"Remy." I succumbed, breathy and shakily, grasping at his shoulders like I was going to slip from the earth.

"Hi, Remy."

"Hi, what's yours?"

"Corazon."

"Corazon," I said, pulling him down to me. "Please stop talking and fuck me."

Something clicked into place when he pushed into me, like a puzzle piece falling into place. The world around us melted into a hazy, distant memory but I could feel the rotation of the Earth, the gravitational pull that kept us so close we became one human, entanglement.

I heard him release a shaky breath as he pulled out of me, and I sucked it up when he thrust deep. He fucked me slowly, eyes open and on my face. My fingers and toes curled and unfurled as I was repeatedly hit with waves of pure pleasure. The ache was unbearable and I hadn't realised it until he filled me with his hardness. It was almost cruel as he retreated with after every thrust, reminding me how disgustingly empty I was.

It was funny, his kissing felt like fucking and his fucking felt like kissing, every part of me yielding to him.

He stopped, his dick buried to the hilt inside me but unmoving. I could have screamed. I did when he started up again, only this time he was even slower, torturing me. I could feel every inch of him glide against my velvety flesh and it seemed to tighten the tension that was coiled within me.

"I'm gonna come! I'm gonna come!" I chanted, my words nothing but an envelope for air.

He didn't let up his slow, languid pace and not too long after I let go, every bit of tension coiled in me springing out through my nerves in an electric storm. He came with me, his whole body seizing and for a fleeting second he was monstrously strong, his fingers gripping the flesh of my ass. I melted around him, around his startling hard dick. He pumped into me softer and softer until his head fell into the crook of my neck, his body falling flaccid against mine.

He leaned up on his elbows, his eyes already moving over my face. I swallowed nervously. I had never felt so vulnerable under somebody's gaze before. He still remained inside me, soft now. I didn't know what to do. They usually just pull out, disengaged and started looking around for my clothes. He stared down at me, a contented smile on his face.

I was trapped, underneath him.

He brushed my cheek with the back of his hand. Oh God, please don't say something cheesy, please don't talk...

He leaned down and kissed me. Okay, I can deal with this. I kissed him back, a slow motion of our lips. I didn't want anything from him at this point so it was unhurried. He pulled away, tucking himself back in with the condom still on and looked down at me.

Shit...

He looked at me like he knew me-and not in a biblical sense either but in a you-are-more-than-just-a-quick-fuck sense.

I sat up, forcing myself to reach and casually put on my clothes. Panties up. Bra on. I couldn't put my shorts back on without kicking him in the faceted and he laughed, grabbing my calf and rubbing it against his cheek. I tried to not let the contact send fireworks to my nervous system but you try arguing with endorphins. I drew in a deeper breath and caught that magical sex musk in my nose.

"Remy?"

My spine crackled when he said it and I tried to find something interesting to look at in the side mirrors. "Yeah?"

"Just trying it out."

Would it be too rude to open the door now?

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah."

"Remy."

I turned to him. I guess that's all he wanted-to say my name and get a response. He tilted his head and the soft glow of the moon caught beneath his chin and swam across his cheek where it pooled in those beautiful blue eyes. He really was just so beautiful. And he was so nice to me. And I had to find a way out before I choked.

"Hey," I said with forced merriment. "I wanna go try out some other rides," The corners of his lips rose with hope. "Why don't you clean up and meet me there?"

I'm a decent liar. Key skills: eye contact, confidence, not caring about the outcome.

But here was the problem. Somehow, in those two hours since I had met him, he knew me enough to see through my bullshit. Maybe he heard a crack in my voice or saw a glimpse of desperation in my eyes because instead of joking or blushing or anything normal, he looked at me like I told him I never wanted to see him again.

Never mind the fact that that was exactly what I was trying to say.

"Okay." He said quietly.

Key skill: follow through.

"Cool." I said and pecked him on the cheek. He grabbed my face and held me there. My heart felt like a jackhammer, beating against my chest like it wanted to escape. Corazon just looked at me, his thumb tracing over my lips and cheek like he was memorizing them like it was the last time he would see them.

I didn't have the heart to give him a fake kiss. I lowered my head and got out of the car.

~·~

My bike was chained to a post on the eastern side of the grounds. It was quiet now, save for the few drunk carnies stumbling about. I swung my leg over my bike and winced at the sweet burn between my legs. God fucking damn it. I had to bike standing up to pedal through the tall grasses and dirt and of course each push reminded me of what I'd just done and how good it felt and how shit I felt now.

Yeah, I hookup with older guys. And then leave them before they can leave me.

Thanks for the abandonment issues, Dad. Fuck you very much.

When I reached the blacktop my eyes were blurry. It was the wind. Really, it was.


	2. Chapter 2

"And," I said, accentuating the vowel. "Done." Okay, yeah, I hesitated when pressing the small trash can. But can you blame me? I've had these skeezy geezers in my contacts since I was 13... It's hard to re-invent yourself.

Yeah, I'm re-inventing myself. But not in the cheesy Hollywood movie way, like cutting my hair because fuck that. I actually liked my dark tresses. I'm also not going to buy a whole new wardrobe (I'm broke). I did think about getting a pet but...(I'm still broke _and_ I can't support a dependent), boyfriend (see previous). I'm not going to do the whole makeover thing either, my mother's whore-paint is enough for me to live au naturel.

I _am_ going to stop being a sleazy girl, taking advantage of all these middle aged men, apply for college because I'll be damned if I'm going to rot away in this shithole of town like my mother. Face my fears at least once a month, August has been done and dusted so September, I'll tell my mother that she has a drug problem. Get a job and not expect my mother to give flying fuck that I want to go to college, or have any idea what I'll need.

Stop using men. Stop. Stop. Stop.

Live life instead numbing myself to it like _her_.

Stop thinking about Corazon...

~·~

"Sorry, but that class is full." I eyed the woman skeptically. They usually just said that so that the students were forced to apply for other classes that were less popular. And while I found it hard to believe that Art class sold like hotcakes, I knew it was only because it was a class you could skim by in.

"I reserved Art last year." Why did I expect her to care? It was futile. She looked like she was half asleep in this swampy office. She looked up at me with a lazy gaze.

"Sorry," She kind of sighed, her half-assed attention focusing back on her computer screen. I saw the reflection of a solitaire game in her glasses. "But we do have a few seats left in Film." She shifted a card before looking up at me.

"I want _Art_."

"There's no money in art." Jesus. What a rude woman. Like I need you to tell me that. "Film is great, you can be an actress."

"I think you learn how to do that in _Drama_."

"Well sure, but Film is kind of like art too." She shrugged, turning back to her card game. Fuck. She did have a point. Okay, I can deal with that. I'm fairly creative, which I should be after years of turning a shit-show that was my life into something half decent. Kind of. I'm good at working with what I have, and it ain't much.

"Okay," I huffed. "Sign me up."

I walked out to my bike before glancing down at the sheet of paper she had printed off for me.

FILM STUDIES (9:30-10:30 MON, TUE, FRI)  
C. DONQUIXOTE  
BLOCK B, CLASS 42

"How do you even pronounce that?"

~·~

Okay, so I'm trying my hand at film studies. I'll have to admit, I have no idea about Kubrick or Hitchcock- you know, the one's you're supposed to say you're into, the good ol' boys. And I'm not a hipster, or a film enthusiast. My tastes skew modern like Terrence Malick, J. J. Abrams, Peter Jackson and the anime films by Miyazaki (which are amazing).

I wonder how well that will go down with my Film Studies teacher.

~·~

 _It kinda feels like the world knows how to be happy and they won't let me in on the secret,_ he had said.

I couldn't get him out of my head. Somewhere in this town was man with an angel's face, a man that _asked_ me my name before he fucked in his car on a hellish August night.

I biked up to the water tower on the hill that overlooked the grounds of where the carnival had been set up. I set my bike down near the fringe of where the tall grass began and walked up the steep, gravel trail. Once I was at the top I climbed the rust-eaten rungs of the ladder that lead up to a crows nest that had been hammered together by some stoners with scraps of wood. From here the lights looked like a crazy swarm of fireflies trapped under an invisible jar. Just like me.

So, I thought. Am I feeling good after sleeping with a nice guy and walking away? Did it hit the spot? Or am I more alone than I ever was before?

All rhetorical questions by the way.

Okay, so maybe being wanted intensely for a few hours wasn't enough. Sure, it got me through few days, sometimes weeks here and there but when the loneliness returned it felt bigger, _hungrier_. I thought it was the guy. Once I met a nice guy it'd be different, but I met the nice guy and left him and I still felt empty.

I told myself that this was his life was. Nobody was happy. Nobody was fulfilled. Corazon was wrong when he said that there was some secret to happiness. There isn't. You just have to harden yourself up and not let the emptiness devour you.

There was a crack, followed by some rustling in the grass.

I jumped, wishing I had a knife or something to protect myself with. Some tweaked-out psycho?

"What are _you_ doing here?" A boy asked. Shit, he was standing next to my bike.

"Go away." I said in a menacing voice. There was a long stretch of silence before I heard a dark chuckle.

"That's some height to _fall_ from. Your skull would shatter," He kicked at the gravel. "Upon impact."

Okay, creepy. Where is that damn knife...

"Well, I'll make sure not to." I figured the longer I stayed up there the more he'd think I was scared of him-I was, but I wasn't going to show him that. So, I climbed down the ladder, jumping the last few rungs and landing on nimble feet.

The boy was a good head and shoulders taller than me. I looked up at him and was taken back by how dark and handsome he was. His hair was made up of silk back strands that actually had a just-fucked kinda look, his face held sharp features such as his steel grey eyes that were rimmed with dark circles-all these probably described some young twenty-something man but he held a youthfulness that told me he was around my age. Maybe a year or two older.

"You actually came down," His lips curled up into a malicious grin. "How _brave_. I could be some sick serial killer."

"Are you?" There was so much bravado laced in my voice that he'd either believe it, or not.

"Not tonight."

I swallowed nervously and pushed past him, yanking my bike from the ground. I felt those cold, narrow eyes watch every move I made, kind of like I was being analyzed. I shot a quick glance over my shoulder as I swung my leg over the seat.

He smirked triumphantly.

~·~

Freedom was officially over.

The sun was still a burning ember in the sky but it began to slant a little more heavily, the shadows of leaves flickering against the pavement like pixels. The world slowly took on a gold tint as the Autumn decay started setting in. The voices around me were soft, more relaxed as everyone began to wind down from the summer, probably preparing themselves for the schedules, routines and straitjackets.

 _8:25_ , the first bell of the first day of school for the new Remy.

I reorganized my thoughts, mentally preparing myself for the next ten months. I waded through the sea of tanned pubescent bodies and the mist of over applied gel and perfume that came with them. Everybody had a cell jammed against their faces trying to get in their last bit of airtime before having to sever all contact with the outside world. I tossed mine into my locker easier than I would have liked to but let's face it, after deleting all those men from my contact list there was nobody left.

So began the first day of my new "unpaid internship" as I had told Corazon. I wonder what he was up to?

Now in retrospect, your probably screaming to yourself: Don't you feel it? Don't you feel that strange edginess in your blood, the way it vibrates as if some nearby force is causing disturbance? Don't you fell the disturbance Luke?

I slammed my locker shut.

One of the school's Mean Girl stalked past, lip curled and her eyes slid up and down my body like a viper's tongue. Okay, maybe I didn't completely change myself. Like I said, I wasn't getting a new wardrobe and I'm not Mother freaking Teresa. I wore shorts that were within a hair's width of school regulation and some old shirt that belonged to a guy I probably fucked, it wasn't buttoned very diligently but it covered enough.

Funny thing was that I still looked at least three times better than her, even after she probably spent all morning tweezing and abrading only to resemble an angry looking clown. I smiled at her sweetly and her scowl deepened. You could almost see the circuits sparking behind her eyes as she scanned me: _Target acquired. Terminate._

 _8:30-9:30,_ World History. Not exactly a topic I wanted to use my brain for at eight in the morning. My mind wandered. Here's some history of the world: Girl meets boy. Girl fucks boy. Girl gets scared and skips out on boy. Boy builds civilization to lure girl back.

After class I made a beeline to my locker, stupidly thinking I had some kind of comfort waiting there for me. Oh right, I deleted the numbers. I sighed heavily, pressing my forehead against my cool locker. Chin up sport. You're a new person and you can deal with this.

"I'm certain that you can shatter your skull that way too."

My heart sank as my skeleton jumped out of my skin. Twisting my head I was met with a set of particularly cold, grey eyes and that lazy but still mocking smirk. What the hell are _you_ doing here, I wanted to scream.

"You have a weird obsession with my skull..."

He smirked again. I didn't like the way he looked down at me but I had the feeling he would still find a way to even if we were the same height. He just felt _arrogant_. He turned to a locker three spaces from mine, collecting a few thick books and tucking them under his arm.

"Anatomy?" I asked, catching a quick glimpse of one of his books.

 _"Biology,_ but that is none of your business." He remarked, sauntering off down the hall. Jesus, I need to steer clear of him.

~·~

Film Studies was next. My first taste of the future I dreamt about. My ticket out of this town. I swam upstairs through the crush of bodies. Like a lamb prancing cluelessly toward a knife.

Room 42 was down the hall, a huge window beside like a portal straight into the sun. I stopped there, spending a few seconds soaking in the light, photons beaming through my eyelids and the warmth seeping into my skin, reminding me of that night he warmed my very soul. Yeah, my own personal sun that I had given up.

When I walked into the classroom my vision danced with microscopic explosions of blood vessels, a hazy red sparkle.

I saw him first.

I didn't even blink. Everything inside me came to a halt. His hair was still a shaggy mess of gold, he wore pressed slacks and a collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows with a gleaming sliver watch on his wrist. Not the casual attire I remember him in but it was undeniably _him_. I knew those hands. I knew that mouth. I'd pictured that face, his eyes shut, nuzzling into my neck as I lay in bed and got myself off.

I knew instantly and unequivocally. Corazon Donquixote. Starting his new job as a teacher here at Newgate High.

My _teacher_.

 _9:30-10:30_ , intro into the End of the World.

He raised his head and swept a generic, acknowledging smile over the room, starting with the far side. It took all of two seconds to reach me but I felt it coming like thunder, sensing my imminent doom and yet paralyzed, unable to run. Despite how good I was at that.

He reached me and paused. His face fell. Not in dismay-all expression went out of it. Shock.

A kid nudged me aside and walked in, slicing my gaze from Corazon's. I was stupidly standing in the doorway. Time felt like a series of small eternities, but it was mere seconds. Corazon stared at me dazedly. I think he was confused. I don't think he realised I was a student yet. I made myself step into the classroom and took the nearest seat to the doorway. You know, just in case.

His mouth opened slightly.

What did we do wrong, Your Honor?

I was of age, he wasn't my teacher _yet_.

I drank, _everyone_ drinks.

He purchased alcohol for me. I lied about my age. Not his fault.

I rest my case.

My eyes were open but I wasn't even conscious of having seen anything for a minute. A gray-out mother dearest like to calamity. You didn't pass out but you just...weren't there for a while. Yeah, my whole life you bitch, but that's not the issue right now.

The room started to fill up. Corazon shuffled papers around his desk, unwittingly knocking his empty mug (thankfully) of the edge. He looked up and stuttered a chuckle, plucking the mug up and setting it right in the middle of the desk.

Was this a dream? Though, it felt distinctly nightmarish.

Corazon straightened and walked toward the door, pausing beside me.

"C-can I see you outside?" Soft, discreet. No hint of emotion. I stood without looking at him, feeling exposed and not just in the sense that he caught me out on my lie but that he was seeing _me_. He waited out in the sun, his long, lean body bathed in honey gold. Kids streamed in and out of the bathroom, their noises seemed fuzzy and distant like they were behind glass.

All the things I dreamt if doing if I ever saw him again ran through my mind. Run into his arms. Apologize for skipping out. Touch his face.

Kiss him.

Instead, we stood two feet of solid sunlight between each other.

"Remy," He said. My head rose as if his voice lifted it.

"Is that your real name?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry."

I wasn't prepared for this. I'd expected anger. _You lied to me. You ran off._ "Why?" I asked, part of me genuinely curious.

He only shook his head.

"I am legal," I said quickly, darting a glance at the kids around us. No one seemed to see anything out of the ordinary, just a teacher talking to a student. "So-don't, you know, be sorry."

"Are you okay?"

I think I'm starting to be. "Yeah."

He rocked on his toes. It made him seem young. God, how old was he anyway? I figured somewhere in his twenties, closely teetering toward the other half but I had no fucking clue. And two measly feet of space wasn't enough to block out that suede smell, tame and subtle now, but unmistakable.

"I don't know what to do," He said. "You tell me what you want. You can transfer to another class. Or I can-I can submit my resignation, right now. I'll do it, just give me the word."

He was talking crazy and it made my heart expand like a balloon. You're guilty, I thought, flustered. You know this will be a disaster if we pretend like nothing happened. Because you still feel something.

The warning bell rang. One minute. Corazon didn't move. His gaze focused on me. "You didn't do anything wrong," I whispered, conscious of the emptying hall. "And I don't want to transfer to another class." For my future, but mostly for you.

"Remy," He said, just my name.

"I'm the knew who should be sorry. I shouldn't have left like that."

Thirty seconds. Lockers slammed. Footsteps hurried.

"I don't think I can do this," He said, his voice breathy.

"It'll be fine," I swallowed every bit of spit in my mouth to say, "Mr. Donquixote." I didn't do half as bad as I thought I would but then against, I did practice it for a while. Little did I know I was practicing _his_ name. Together, we walked back into the classroom.

It was both the longest and shortest hour of my life and at the end of it, all I remembered was him saying "See you tomorrow." and eyeing me a heartbeat longer than anyone else.

~·~

I sat In the cafeteria completely dazed. I don't even remember how I got here or when but I was here, a tray of indistinguishable food sitting front of me. I did notice when somebody began looming over me. I looked up and saw that same dark and handsome boy smirking down at me.

"What?" I said, my voice neither here or there.

"You are rather rude," He mused, a glint of amusement showing in those eyes of his. "Do you have a problem with me sitting here, at this particular table?"

"Would you care if I did?"

"Of course not." He grinned, placing a plastic container down in front of him. I watched as he peeled the lid off, plucked a rice ball up and sank his teeth into it. You see, I was watching him but my kind had already drifted off to somewhere else. Somewhere _he_ was. Where was he?

The bell rang and I managed to focus enough to notice-well, with the helpful kick from dark and handsome. Somehow we had walked down the hall together before he stopped in front of me. I looked at him like a deer in headlights, where was I again?

"I think you may need this back." He said handing a phone to me- wait, that is _my_ phone.

"How the hell did you-" Oh, what do I care, it's not like there's anything incriminating on it. I deleted that stuff ages ago. "Keep it if you want to. Not like I need it." I said shrugging.

"You will," He said, taking my hand and placing the phone there. Okay, now that I think about it, I might just get Corazon's number- I mean, let's not get ahead of ourselves but I'm still hopeful. "I've already made myself a contact-actually, it's pretty pathetic that I am the only contact you have."

"What?"

"Is that the extent of your vocabulary? 'What'" He teased. "Just answer whenever I contact you, yes? I'm sure someone of you caliber can manage that at least."

Steer clear of this guy. Yeah, hard to do that when he's driving right into me. "You are a sick psycho aren't you?"

"And you're just figuring this out now?" There was something dark and knowing in his eyes. I looked down at my phone and opened up my contact list. _1_ new contact _. Law._ "Don't go filling your empty head with ideas either. I'm not one of your sleazy hookups. _You_ are _my_ project."

 _Sleazy hookups?_


	3. Chapter 3

The cool temperature brought on by dusk had begun to creep into the air now, forcing the warmth of the day to dissipate in its wake. I ran the bath, lit some candles (trust a drug house to have a good stock of them) and added some orange oil to the water.

I slipped in and shivered as the hot water stripped me to the bone. I relaxed back against the porcelain and sighed all of the tension out of my body. His face kept popping into my thoughts, like those computer viruses screaming at you with neon colours saying "Congratulations, you've won $500,000!" My firewall was no match for him, and I was thoroughly infected and some wicked part of me liked it that way.

~·~

I needed a fix.

When I get myself off, it's usually a utilitarian thing. Sex logic. The shortest path to what I want.

Not tonight.

I parted my knees, let a hand trail along my thigh and settle wherever gravity decided. My eyes fluttered shut as I slid further down into the water, letting it crush me the way Corazon did that night. I imagined the gentle grizzle of his cheek grind between my breasts as he explored my flesh with his lips. I craved his hardness, that smoky leathery smell of his front seat, that overwhelming sense of masculinity all around me, forcing its way inside of me. Candlelight flickered against my eyelids. I touched myself the same way, lightly, flickeringly, warm water swirling around my fingertip. It almost could have been a tongue. I remember him teasing me with the head of his dick, making me tell him my name first. I breathed harder. Bit my lip. Slipped my finger inside. Water lapped at the porcelain, like a wet slap of skin.

God, if only he was the one fucking me right now.

This was his finger, I thought. Not mine. This was him shoving me against the classroom wall, his hand inside my underwear, his finger snaking inside me, fucking me as I grew tighter around him. His thumb circling my clit without touching the tip. His finger sliding in all the way to the knuckle, stiff and quick, that I took as deeply as I could, that made me ache in a place so far inside me it didn't seem real-the root of me. His finger fucking me and filling my belly with heat that built higher until I couldn't contain it anymore and it spilled over in a white-hot rush. His hand making me come, making my thighs tighten and my voice cry out and my honey spread all over him, giving myself up to the water, to this man in my head.

~·~

He looked up when I walked in.I waited and let a few other kids go in first, so I could walk in alone. So he could look up nervously and see me and break into a smile, that smile I remembered from that night, that small, private one. He looked down quickly at his desk, but his lips were still curved.

"Remy,"

What the fuck was Law doing in my class?!

"What the hell? What are you doing here?" I said.

I shot an anxious look between him and Corazon. Could he know? Was this some kind of intervention?

He smirked. "Funny you say that, I half expected you to be out fu-"

"Law." I heard Corazon warn in a tone I'd never heard before. It kind of had me dazed and electrified at the same time. The blood in my veins humming with the vibrations of his voice.

"Someone dropped. I took their place." Law's voice interjected my daze. I eyed him as he took to the desk in front of mine.

"Oh." The disappointment in my voice didn't go unnoticed but it seemed to have fueled that crazy fire behind Law's eyes. I tested the edge of my nail between my teeth. A bad habit. I let my mind wonder on the subject of being Law's subject but not for too long as Corazon tapped a handful of papers against his desk before shifting to the front of the classroom.

He didn't look at me. I looked down at my desk. Someone had carved NAMI=SLUT. I thought about carving THAT WILL BE $50 FOR THE USE OF MY NAME-NAMI, but Corazon-I mean Mr. Donquixote-probably would've caught me before I finished.

I was not going to entertain the insane detention fantasy that instantly popped into my mind.

All my stoked-up happiness evaporated. I wasn't the self-made teacher-seducing minx who'd walked in. I was a banal teenage girl with depressingly typical problems.

I glanced up at Cor-Mr. Donquixote. It was like he had a Remy radar: his eyes rose to mine immediately. Or maybe he'd been looking at me more often than I realised. I remembered the bathtub (involuntarily) and blushed, but didn't look away. I can do this, I thought. I can't touch you but I can eye-fuck you. He wore his collar open today, his hair a little mussed, and I wondered if it was for me. I let my eyes move over him, shoulders to waist, then a slow return. His gaze stayed steady on mine.

Movement in my peripheral vision.

Law, training a video camera on me.

"Jesus," I snapped, whirling away. "Will you fucking ask me first?"

"I was simply capturing a moment."

My heart throbbed in my throat. "What moment?"

"Homicidal rage."

Despite myself, I laughed, relieved. I couldn't even begin to try and understand Law. He was like a one thousand piece puzzle and I had no idea what the bigger picture was supposed to resemble. I wasn't even entirely sure that I wanted to know him, but I wasn't going to lie and say there wasn't something about him that was absolutely compelling.

The final bell rang.

My teacher stood up, smiling. An open, ordinary smile. He spoke to us, asked questions, spent more time listening to our answers than he lectured. Showed us film clips on YouTube, nodded enthusiastically when we began to recognize them for ourselves. Asked about our favourite directors, actors, composers. I managed to answer like a normal human being. I got into a debate with a guy about whether Alien was a feminist movie. Law pointed out that Ripley was originally written as a man and someone called him EncyLawpedia (brilliant), and Law cutting the guy down with some witty remark as if his tongue were a sharp edged sword. Mr. Donquixote listened to us earnestly, his face filled with curiosity, amusement, respect. HE was smarter than us but not smug. He shared his intelligence like a secret, making us conspirators in it. I could feel the whole class falling in love with him.

And every time his eyes touched me, the air jolted.

Heat lightening.

~·~

I started to follow Law out of class when Mr. Donquixote called my name. Law raised his brows. I shrugged, pretending to have no idea what it was about. Law shrugged too, though I could feel something stir within him.

I kept my gaze on Law's back as he lost himself in the sea of bodies, but no-one could quite swallow him up, completely make him disappear into the background. I figured Law was just one of those people. He made you see him or he didn't.

And I was dragging this out because I was nervous. This could be something amazing, or this could be the turning-in-my-resignation/you'll-be-better-off speech.

And this would be the absolute first time I'd been alone with him since the night we met.

I turned around. He stood behind his desk, a solid obstacle preventing untoward contact between teacher and student.

"Close the door."

My heart did a kickflip.

I closed it, lingered over the lock, left it open. I walked slowly toward his desk, wondering where I should stop. My knees hit the cool steel.

"Hi." He said.

We hadn't talked until now. All that stuff in class had been between other selves.

"Hi."

He seemed about to say something rehearsed, his bangs shifting up and down from the movement of his eyebrows, mouth ajar, but he just looked at me and it melted away. And he kept looking.

"Is this weird for you?" He said finally.

"Yes. Is this weird for you?"

"Yes."

"Good."

The corner of his mouth lifted. My stomach mimicked it. My center of gravity grew wings and took off.

"I keep hoping this is some elaborate practical joke."

"How do we make this work?"

My eyes widened.

"Shit," He said, laughing. "I didn't-I mean, how do we have a class together without it being weird?"

"I don't think that's possible."

"If it.." He trailed off, his blue eyes seemingly darker than I remembered. "If it ever gets too weird for you, tell me. Anything you need, I'll do it. No questions asked."

I hated that he was treating me like a victim. Someone he needed to make reparations to.

"What about you?" I said, propping my hip against the desk, folding my arms. "What happens if it gets too weird for you? You just get to pack up and leave?"

"It's not like that."

"What is it like?"

"And it's already too weird for me," He said, ignoring my question. "I have no memory of the last 24 hours. There was the moment you walked into my class, and then there's now. Nothing else."

My mouth opened, an involuntary breath coming free.

"But I don't want to impose that shit on you. It's not your problem."

"Impose," I said.

He winced. Put a hand on his desk, leaned into it. The space between us was finding ways to close, even with solid objects intervening.

"I don't want to screw your life up, Remy."

"Do you have a class third period?"

"No."

I unfolded my arms and before he could do anything, I took that open collar in my hands, lifted on my toes, and kissed him across the aircraft carrier he called a desk. He didn't fight. He kissed me back, oh so lightly, lips barely parting. Careful. I could taste the slick film of peppermint in his mouth but it didn't quite mask that bitter tang, like cigarettes and liquor-that masculine flavour my taste-buds were quickly growing accustomed to liking.

"This is dangerous." He whispered against my mouth.

"I know." I said.

He pulled me onto his desk and I swung my legs across to his side. We never stopped kissing. One hand at the back of my neck, the other gliding between my thighs. My legs tightened but my mouth opened in response, as if my wires had crossed. I thrust my hands into that hair I'd wanted to mess up so badly. I was short of breath but kept kissing him anyway, not getting enough off that tobacco tang, those lips that were somehow firm and yielding at the same time, opening me, parting me. Giddily I thought, Have you been eating mints on the off chance that this would happen? Have you been obsessing about this as much as I have?

A knock on the door.

Hands instantly demagnetized. I hopped off his desk, smoothed my shorts. He dropped into his chair and crossed his legs.

"Yes?" He called, deep and steady.

I stepped back to an appropriate distance, but our eyes never left each other.

Thank fucking god, it was just some random kid. "You got the projector here?"

"No." Mr. Donquixote said. "It's in 208."

"Sorry." The kid closed the door.

We both breathed audibly.

"We can't do this here," He said.

"Where can we do it?"

He laughed. "Nowhere," He said, but his words were at odds with his eyes.

"Don't give me the fake Boy Scout routine," I said. "You're sitting there with a hard-on." My bravado was slightly spoiled by the breathless delivery. The way he looked at me from under his shaggy bangs, slightly sheepish, slightly intense, turned every girl part in me to jelly. I clenched my hands to keep them from idle evil.

"What happens now?" I asked.

"I don't know, Remy."

Say my name. God, keep saying it.

"You won't break me," I said, my voice low. "I'm not a doll. I'm not fragile. And you can't possibly screw up my life more than it already is."

That furrowed look, the mournful angel observing human tragedy. "It's not just about damage control. It should be more than that."

"Then give me more." I said.

The third-period bell rang.

I walked out, but my heart stayed right there where I'd planted it, a tender little seed waiting for sun.


	4. Chapter 4

Friday looked like rain. That sneaky summer rain that waits for a still moment and sucks the air out of the world before it explodes the sky into water. For the first time in eons, Mom drove me to school. We sat in the van like strangers on a plane, making awkward small talk.

"You still talk to Bonney?"

"Who?"

"That Bonney girl you went around with. The pink haired girl, with the piercing?"

"I haven't talked to her since I started here."

"Oh."

Traffic light. Yellow. Red.

"Got lunch money?"

"Yeah."

"Where you get it?"

"Turned a trick."

"Watch your fuckin' mouth."

Green.

"Can you get out here? I got a pickup."

I opened the door wordlessly.

"Babe."

I looked at my mother. She had my face, under crayon makeup. She had that small town drawl that told you she had a dead-end future-something I would never, ever have.

"Let's go out this weekend. You and me."

Drop dead.

"I'm gonna be late." I said.

"Love you."

I slammed the door. Pictured it closing on her face. The clown stamp she'd leave on the glass.

You wondered why I lied to you Mr. Donquixote? Because I'm never going to be her.

~·~

"We're going to do things differently in this class," He said. I sat next to Law, my attention drifting outside. A big old granddaddy black oak shivered in the sudden breeze, a thousand leaves clicking dryly, like castanets. The world was tense and desaturated, waiting for the catharsis of rain. I knew exactly how it felt.

Law filmed Mr. Donquixote and the two exchanged a look-or rather, Mr. Donquixote shot him a look, one that seemed personal and Law simply gazed back at him, his face void of emotion. Mr. Donquixote accepted that he really didn't have a choice whether he wanted to be filmed or not, though he did go on to talk about permission. Permission was very important.

Remember that.

"I'm not a believer in tests or quizzes or any of that bullshit," our teacher said. _Bullshit_ got my attention. I turned to him. Casual today. Jeans and a plaid shirt. He wore glasses sometimes, simple plastic frames, the narrow lenses emphasizing that crinkling thing his eyes did.

I was not the only girl in class who noticed this. Olive, a girl with skin the colour of butterscotch and eyes that were more like emerald stones, kept crossing her legs this way, then that.

Law held the camera on Mr. Donquixote.

I rolled my eyes.

"I'm only giving you one assignment this semester," Mr. Donquixote continued. "You're going to make a short film. Any genre, any style, any subject. It can be a documentary about your three-legged cat. It can be a classic sci-fi genre film." His eyes touched me, and I blushed. "Whatever. It's up to you. Minimum three minutes long, max ten. You can group up or tackle it solo. I strongly encourage you to group-that's how most films get made.

He leaned against the desk. I thought about that body atop mine on the long front seat of his car. Olive yawned, stretching her arms above her head. Cleavage shot.

"However," Mr. Donquixote said, looking straight at me, raising all the blood to my skin, "if you're some kind of mad genius, you can go at it alone. It's all up to you."

Olive narrowed her eyes at me, like a cat.

"This project is due by winter break. We'll watch and grade them together. You cannot ask me any questions about it. I've told you all you need to know. If you weren't paying attention, I'll post a copy to our class folder online."

Law turned to me, setting the camera down for the first time during class.

"So, I guess you've given me your undivided attention _now_ just to tell me that I have no choice but to partner up with you?" I said before he could. He cocked a brow as if displeased with me calling him out.

"So," He began as he rose from his desk just as the bell rang. "you are learning something. Well done." He smirked down at me. It felt like he was praising me and mocking me at the same time under that gaze of his. I ground my teeth together.

I dallied, hoping Law would leave without me, but he waited, patiently so. Mr. Donquixote watched me, his face angled partially away, shadowed. Our gazes struck like flint and steel. The smell of gunpowder filtering in from nowhere. We burned.

~·~

Law grazed at his lunch, seeming distant as he bit into a rice ball. I allowed my mind to wonder off too, into the parking lot, moon-eyed. Here and there a dash of rain shot down, a meteor streak of water. The sky clenched, desperately holding itself in. There's something terrible about wanting something you've had. You know exactly what you're missing. You're body knows precisely how to shape itself around the ache, the hollowness that wants to be filled.

Jesus Christ, this was only the first week of school. No fucking way would I make it to winter break, let alone June.

"Remy,"

I glanced at Law miserably.

You know, he wasn't terrible-looking. He had character. Deep-set eyes, cool, steel-grey, intense. Hair that looked as if someone had taken liquid midnight and froze it so that it always looked windblown. He had a sharp Adam's apple and lips that flexed easily into a lupine grin.

The old me would have slept with him, probably. He had that mature air about him that didn't totally come across as bullshit. But there was this voice in my head that asked why a teenage boy like him hadn't tried any moves on me.

Whatever it was, I was glad that he didn't.

"What?" I said.

There was that wolfish grin. "You've got a crush on Mr. Donquixote."

My belly tightened. _Crush_ was an understatement of the year. But it might be good to know how it looked to an outsider.

"Why do you think that?"

"Because you've been walking around with that I-want-to-be-fucked face all day."

I laughed. Not too full blown. "Oh, you know the face?" He didn't answer but his expression hadn't faltered. "Olive has a crush on him, too."

Law scoffed, slowly leaning over the table. "Would you fuck him?"

Decision time. Do I let Law know the real me, or do I make up a persona for him, a suit of armor I can take on and off? As if there was a choice. As if I wasn't burning up inside with this. Every time I opened my mouth, flame licked up my throat. I could have razed villages, kidnapped princesses.

"Yeah," I said. "I would."

His brows rose. "Have you? With a man that old?"

I smiled enigmatically, plucking a chicken nugget from my tray and biting it.

"You don't even know what old is." I said. "Mr. Donquixote is probably like, 29 maybe 30. That's nothing."

Law smirked darkly, knowingly.

"He was in high school before you were born."

My heart paused. Little factoids like that really cut to the bone of reality. "So?"

"Which means he would have been sleeping with high school girls when you were just a child."

"What is wrong with you?"

Law blinked at me. The cogs behind his eyes churning as if I had asked him the meaning of life.

We sat in utter silence before Law sighed, his chest expanding then deflating. Armor up, I stood from the table. "So, what do you want me to do?" I huffed. Law's gaze slowly trailed up from his tray.

"Nothing."

"I thought-"

"Do nothing."

~·~

I was waiting at his car when he came out. Some teachers stay late on Friday, catching up on papers, making plans to hit the bars together. Mr. Donquixote headed for his car exactly fifteen minutes after the last bell.

I could tell when he saw me, the hitch in his step, the quick, guilty scan for witnesses. In the student lot kids yelled and honked as they took off for the weekend, but the faculty lot was quiet. I sat on the hood of his car, one foot propped on the fender beside it. A tiny, distorted version of myself swirled in the hubcap chrome: creamy legs below my cutoffs, old black canvas sneakers. The silver sky wrinkled with storm clouds.

He stopped in front of the hood. His hand tightened on the strap of his messenger bag, his knuckles white spurs.

"Do you need to talk?" He said in a muted voice.

I shook my head slowly. His chest rose and fell with his breath. He went to the driver side, unlocked it, stood there unmoving.

"We can't do this." He said, but it sounded like he was talking to himself.

I hoped off the hood and he got in the car. But he just sat there, keys glinting in a limp hand. The he turned and looked at me through the passenger window. My eyes skipped to the dashboard then back to him.

There was something very boyish about him at that moment, despite the five o' clock shadow, the blue rivers of veins mapping the back of his hands, the entire adult world he was part of. He looked lost. Maybe it was hypocritical, but the boyishness I barely tolerated in guys my age was exactly what drew me to him. He was like me: not fully part of the adult or child world. An exile, watching wistfully from the outside.

Something sharp and cold struck my shoulder.

A car drove past and we were utterly still.

Another icy dagger, this time hitting the crown of my head. Then it all came at once, the sky exploding into water.

Thank you, Jesus.

Mr. Donquixote sat there watching me. He didn't take his eyes off mine for a second, even when my hair plastered itself to my face and my shirt turned to cling film. I stood there motionless, expressionless, knowing I was going to win.

He leaned over and opened the door.

I got in.

Rain drummed on metal, a hundred wild heartbeats surrounding us. Mist came off my skin as if I was some ethereal creature. Our bodies faced forward, our faces angled toward each other.

"I missed that smell," He said, a smile playing on his voice. "Your smell."

Everything solid in me evaporated, leaving only breath. I weighed nothing.

He started the car. I felt the engine rumble in my belly. I was very thin, transparent piece of skin, everything going right through me. A sheet of nerve endings. I pressed my palms to the seat and drank in the smell: the old leather of the seats, the new leather of his skin, and, startlingly, me. My presence suffused his car. Rain and orange oil, the creamy body lotion that was coming off on the seat. I wiped wet hair out of my face and Mr. Donquixote caught my hand.

I waited, wide-eyed, ready for anything.

His fingers curled around mine, painfully. His whole arm was rigid. Tension corded up into his neck, his jaw. No words. Just that crushing grip.

He let go.

"Where do you live?"

~·~

It rained ruthlessly. I had no sense of time passing, of moving through space, only the zircon curtain clattering against the windows and the heat of his body so close to mine. I knew he was barely paying attention either because he almost ran a red. He slammed the brakes so hard the tires screeched and I caught myself on the dashboard, his arm tangling with mine.

"Killing us both is one way to solve it." I said.

He drove more carefully, his hands strangling the steering wheel. The closer we got to my street, the faster something accelerated inside me, a terrifying urgency. How could I stall? How could I wring more out of this moment before it was over?

He parked several houses down from mine. I didn't tell him to, and there was room in front of my house. My heart stuttered.

Car interior, afternoon, heavy rain, two people turn to each other. Raindrops crawl over the windows and paint shadows across their faces.

Action.

"Corazon," I said.

It was the first time I'd said his name since that night. It hit him like an electric shock, opening his eyes wider, stiffening his muscles. There was power in it and I wanted to play with that power. But not yet.

"I'm sorry I left that night."

"Why did you go?" He asked.

There was no choice here of putting on the armor. This man had already seen the real me.

"Because I was scared," I started. "Because you made me feel like being myself wasn't such a bad thing. Like it might even be...special. I didn't know how to deal with it, an I panicked." I grimaced, hearing my own words.

"This sounds stupid." My left hand lay on the seat. He covered it with his.

"No, it doesn't. You're being honest, so I'll be honest, too." His finger contracted. "This feels wrong, Remy. I'm your teacher. It's not just about getting caught, It's how our lives will get screwed up even if no-one finds out. Sneaking around, secrecy, paranoia-"

"You're seriously underestimating how much I like espionage. And it's just until school ends."

"Is that how you want to spend your senior year?"

"I don't want to spend it wondering what could have been."

His expression turned morose, inward-looking.

"Corazon," I said again, and he focused on me. "If I hadn't left that night, if this kept going...would you still think we should stop now?"

"I don't know."

"Do you really want to stop?"

"No," He said softly.

There was no desperate collision of bodies this time. We moved in small increments, my fingers lacing through his,my neck craning toward him. My gaze fixed itself on his jaw, the place just under his lower lip. His free hand came up and touched my mouth, traced it, fingertips pushing in, against my teeth. Again I grimaced. I saw him blur as I looked through my wet lashes. Unbearable. All of this restraint, everything furled and reined in, while the rain came down with pure wrath.

A car roared past, throwing a tsunami against his door. We both started. It must have broken the trance because then his arms were around me and I was on my knees, kissing him, pressing his back to the window. I tasted glassy rain and my own wet hair tangling across my face. He didn't stop me to fix his shot. He wanted me as I was, raw, unedited. His hand ran up the back of my bare leg, his fingers stroking the inside of my thigh. I gasped against his mouth. Rubbed my face against his jaw, hard, feeling the grit. Mark me, I thought. Give me something to take away with me. Something I can touch when I'm alone, remembering this.

When we stopped to breath he took my face between his hands. "You don't know what you do to me. I can't look at you in that classroom."

"You look at me all the time."

"And do horrible things to you in my head."

My blood was wildfire. I felt my swollen mouth, my sharp teeth digging into my lip, my dreamy half-shut eyes, and knew what I looked like to him. "Do them to me." I said. "Take me somewhere."

He gave a long, long sigh. His lips were shades darker than before, from my attention. "I want to. You have no idea how much I want to." Two fingers on my chin, pinching gently. "This moving is moving too fast. We should think it through. Think about how to be less conspicuous."

My face lit up with glee. "I can be discreet. I can be Harriet the fucking Spy."

His hands moved to my ribs. Palms cupping my breasts, rubbing my wet shirt into my skin. It chafed, but I didn't want him to stop. I wanted this. Imprint yourself on me, I thought. It felt like he held all of me, gathered there next to my heart, small enough to fit in his hands.

"I wish I could take you away." He said in a rough, eerie, whisper.

I shivered. "How am I supposed to make it through the weekend?"

"I was wondering the same thing."

We kissed for a while, soft, sweet good-bye, kisses. We traded numbers. We touched each other's faces, hands. The glass had gone opaque, glowing with fuzzy spots of colour, the way a camera blurs background lights. We kissed again. I tried to think of another excuse to stay in his car, and he smiled, reading my thoughts.

"I don't know what I'm doing with you." He said.

"That's okay," I said. "Just don't stop."

I stood in the rain, watching his car go, a string tied to it looped around my heart and pulled tighter and tighter until it sheared clean through.


	5. Chapter 5

At seven Saturday morning I woke to Mom's voice, a raven screech ravaged from cheap alcohol and cigarettes.

"Babe! I made breakfast. Let's go shopping."

I pulled my pillow over my face and wondered if I had the discipline to suffocate myself.

"Get up, lazybones."

Curtain swish. Hellish sunlight ignited my bed, seeping all the way through the pillow. "Go away." I groaned. I'd been having this weird dream about being chased through a cornfield by a wild dog. I couldn't see it when I looked back, just the ripple through the stalks. But when it growled I felt its breath on my neck, hot and toxic.

So, when she said she had "made breakfast", she really meant she bought McDonald's. At least it wasn't her usual liquid meal. I scarfed down an egg sandwich and observed the woman that gave birth to me. Sunlight was not kind to her face. Her eye shadow looked greasy, not covering the dark circles so much as completing them. She was heavy-handed with her lipstick too, thick and tacky. No one wore magenta anymore, except ironically.

Once upon a time, this witchy skeletal creature was a teenage girl, like me. Her eyes were a clear peridot, her skin poreless alabaster. She was beautiful. Men and boys worshiped her.

I shuddered. I had the disturbing sense that I was looking into a mirror that showed the future.

"What do you need to shop for?" I said.

"For you, silly."

I eyed her suspiciously. "You never buy me things."

"It was a good week." Translation: I sold a lot of drugs to kids your age.

"And you're going to spend it on me." Not a question. A tentative statement.

"I can't stand looking at you in those ratty clothes. You need something nice."

Them ratty clothes were good enough for Mr. Donquixote, I thought. "You can give me the money, I'll buy them myself."

Please, Jesus, don't go with me.

Mom smiled. Her porcelain caps shone brilliantly. The majority of her teeth were fake, the real ones rotted out by meth. "If I got to pay to spend time with you, I will."

 _Zip, thunk_. Arrow right in the heart. It sank deep, quivering. I knew this woman cared about me in some delusional way. I just preferred when we both ignored that fact.

She chained smoked in the van. I hung halfway out the window, texting Law. _If there was ever a time you thought about killing me, please, do it now._

He text back: _To what do I owe the pleasure?_

 _Girls' day out with mother dearest._

 _Who is the girl?_ Good old Law.

~·~

We drove out to the eastern part of town where the lawns were lush with green grass and white picket fences. We stopped at the mall, ice-cold AC, that soda pop smell in the slightly carbonated air. Mom took me straight to Criminal. We passed a rack of pretorn, prefaded jean shorts, indistinguishable from what I was wearing except for the price tag. I raised a eyebrow. Translation: I told you so.

"Get what you like." Mom said. She held a black mesh tank against her boobs, turning left and right.

"I'll meet you at the register." I said, slipping away.

Alone on the hardwood floors under champagne-coloured lights, I'll admit-I felt slightly glamorous. I couldn't stop looking at myself in the mirrors. I knew I was pretty. I'd never been on of those angsty girls who needed constant reassurance. When your Mom's skeezy "business partners" hit on you when you're twelve, you learn fast. I'd been aware of male attention since before menarche. I knew I was desirable. I knew how to wield that as both a tool and a weapon.

I'd never really thought of myself as beautiful, though.

The girl in the mirror was beautiful.

Part of falling in love with someone is actually falling in love with yourself. Realizing that you're gorgeous, you're fearless and unpredictable, you're a firecracker spitting light, entrancing a hundred faces that stare up at you with starry eyes.

The girl in the mirror stared at me. She blinked slowly, knowingly. She seemed to be looking at something bright-chin raised, eyes distant, guarded. Button nose and full lips. Her mouth was open slightly, a sliver of white visible. She had the kind of effortlessly slender body older women hated her for. Her breasts were average, even on the small side, but she carried them in a way that made you aware. She carried her whole body that way. Spine straight, each limb flowing loosely, easily. She had bones only when she needed them. Rich chestnut hair spilled over her bare shoulders, an elegant mess.

I looked at her and thought, I don't know who you are.

A group of girls drifted past, laughing in brazen tones. They smelled like a walking Bath & Beyond Works ad. They were moisturized and shining and tan, but beneath that was pudginess, acne, bulimia, self-hatred. They were processed. I was natural, uncultured and untamed.

My phone vibrated.

Perona, the pretty gothic girl from history class, asking about our project. After I'd responded and put it away, I still felt it. His number was right there, snug against my ass. Any moment, I could reach out to him, connect. For now it was comforting just knowing it was there. But I knew this kind of comfort wouldn't last. I'd need more.

~·~

Mom didn't bat an eyelash at the armful of clothes I dumped on the counter. I watched the register tick up, growing increasingly nervous as we hit $100, $150, $200. No way would she go for this. She'd stop the cashier. Oh god, she wasn't stopping the cashier. There was going to be A Scene.

Total: $242.18

Mom pulled out a wad of twenties. I tried not to gawk. One of the laughing bulimic girls watched us leave, her eyes glinting jealousy.

I was too stunned to say thank you. I followed Mom to the food court, feeling like a delivery person, about to give this to some kid who really deserved it.

She bought a huge plate of orange chicken and picked at it, eating like a bird. My body tensed, expecting a blowup. IT couldn't go this long without turning ugly.

"Want to see a movie?"

My mouth dropped. We hadn't done that since I was little. I cleared my throat, blinked. Something weird was happening in my chest. It was an actual feeling for this woman.

"I'm kind of tired." I said. Her eyes widened. She looked like a sad raccoon. Her mascara made spider legs out of her eyelashes.

"Maybe a short one?" I conceded.

I couldn't believe myself. I knew she was manipulating me. I didn't know _why_ yet, but I knew better than to buy into her shit. Remember what she's done to you, I thought. Remember those nights she left you alone on the couch with a man who kept saying how pretty you were, who touched you, so she could squeeze more money out of him. Remember her going to jail for possession and sticking you in a group home for three months. Remember she's the reason you're so screwed up.

I didn't remember anything.

I sat with her in the refrigerated theater, smelling her cigarette breath and way-too-young perfume, watching a terrible movie, laughing.

~·~

That night I sprawled on my bed with my ancient laptop, ostensibly researching my history report but actually googling Mr. Donquixote. Not much Internet presence. Some placeholder profiles on social networking sites. Some blurry JPEGs. Even those tiny, pixelated images made my heart spin like a top. I saved the best one to my desktop, glancing at him while reading about...what was I reading?

Not good. I was becoming obsessed.

New search: Age of consent laws.

We were legal.

That night at the carnival was legal, obviously, and even if it happened now, as teacher and student, when he was in a "position of trust or authority" over me, it would still be legal because the cutoff was sixteen. As a seventeen (very soon to be eighteen) year old, I could legally fuck my teacher.

Of course, if anyone found out, they'd fire him in a heartbeat. He'd probably never teach again.

Something heavy thudded downstairs.

I put in my earbuds and lay back, eyes closed. The Constellations, "Right Where I Belong." Mellow and bluesy and bittersweet. Just how I felt.

A tepid breeze ghosted through the room, smelling of grass and dying summer. The cicadas were so loud I heard them through the music, the rattle of a million rainsticks. What are you doing right now? I wondered. What if I called?

Something heavy fell again. My bed vibrated.

I sat up, yanking out my earbuds.

 _Thump, thump, thump_.

I stormed downstairs, calling for Mom. A man stood in our living room, rangy, gray beard, jeans so oily they looked like leather.

"Your mom had too much to drink." He said.

Mom was on the floor. He was trying to help her to the sofa.

"Jesus," I said, kneeling. Her skin was cool to the touch. "She wasn't drinking. She's cold. What did she take?"

The man gave me an unreadable look.

"Mom?" I shook her. She was breathing, but shallowly. "Mom, what did you take?" I thumbed an eye open. Her pupil contracted in the light. She moaned, rolled away from me.

Thank fucking God.

I turned to the man. "Who are you?"

"Paul."

"Paul," I said curtly, "Carry my mom to bed."

He carried her, and I held her head up. I pulled the cover over her. Turned on the lamp. Found her cell and pressed it into Paul's hand.

"You're going to stay with her until she comes down." I said. "Check her pulse every five minutes. If it slows, or she gets colder, or stops breathing, call a fucking ambulance. I can't do this again."

Paul had trouble paying attention to my mouth. He stared at my legs like they were talking.

"Hey," I snapped my fingers. He looked up.

I took a picture with my phone. "Now I've got you on file. Don't fucking leave her until she comes down."

Paul's beard twitched.

I shut the bedroom door and leaned my head against the wall in the darkness. My throat twisted shut.

Selfish bitch. She had never, ever let me be a kid.

A wedge of amber light fell across me. Paul stepped out of the bedroom. For a pathetic second I considered hugging this stranger. I needed to be hugged, by anyone.

Paul put a hand on my back. My shoulders knit. The hand slid down to the top of my ass.

I slammed my elbow into his gut. He gave a small, stifled gasp.

"Touch me again," I said. "And I'll fucking kill you."

I walked fast out of the hall, but once I turned the corner I ran for the front door. Slammed it behind me. Dropped onto the top step, breathing wildly.

God, my life was a fucking joke.

I pulled my phone out, intending to call Law, to beg him to meet me somewhere, but before I could a new text popped up.

From Mr. Donquixote.

Just a photo, no words. A ribbon of fireflies zigzagging through the night. The fiery spokes of a Ferris wheel. The merry-go-round like a giant music box. Deathsnake, a sinuous line of lights rising into the sky, dropping off into oblivion. It looked like a small galaxy, a fog of coloured light hanging around it like a nebula. He'd taken it from his house.

The lights he saw every night.

My heart calmed. I stared at the screen, forgetting the life behind me. _Wish I was there_ , I replied.

A moment later, his response: _Me too_.

Somewhere in the universe, two hearts reached out and connected.

Then a figure stepped out into the light streaming from the house, a shadow falling over me. I leapt up and ran for my bike in the garage, pedaled furiously down the street to the highway. I headed for the water tower, racing as fast as I could, even when I was alone with the arctic starlight and the wind keening in my ears.

At the reservoir I jumped off my bike, letting it fall. Used my momentum to run up the hill. Breathless, sweaty. My blood sand in my veins at supersonic speed. I climbed to the crow's nest, feeling savage. I could kill someone with my bare hands right now.

Law sat on the driftwood boards.

"Remy?"

I collapsed beside him, rolling to my back and staring up at the fat-bellied tank. I drank in the cool night air, soothing the burn in my lungs.

"What happened to you?"

I waited until I had my breath back. "My mom overdosed."

"Is she going to live?"

"Unfortunately, yes." I sat up. "Maybe. I really don't give a fuck."

I felt him looking at me, watching me. I slid to the edge of the platform, dangling my legs off. Thirty-foot drop to grass and dirt.

"It won't be fatal." Law said, observing me. I laughed breathlessly.

"What is your greatest fear?" I asked him. Law exhaled.

"Being alone for the rest of my life." I looked at him wide-eyed. As text book as that confession was, he sounded...genuine.

"That's a good one." My fingers flexed. "Mine is being my mom."

I kicked myself off the platform.

I heard an indistinguishable sound bubble to Law's lips before the whoosh of air flooded my ears. My arms held; I swung out over space, light as air. It seemed I could let go and just float to the ground like ash.

I pulled myself back up onto the platform, meeting an unimpressed-looking Law.

"You're not going to make this a murder-suicide are you?" I joked.

"I'm not like you," He said, annoyed tone evident in his voice. "I don't want to self-destruct."

"What?" I said in a soft voice.

"If you want to kill yourself, be my guest. But don't do it in front of me." Law stood silently, slipping his black hoodie over his head as he casually headed toward the ladder. I watched, speechless, as he strode off through the tall grass.

Then I stood alone. I felt empty, a sort of diffuse hunger, a gnawing sensation in my belly and lungs and throat.

The world shivered brightly.

Don't cry. Don't fucking cry.

I took my phone out. Lost myself in those lights, the stupid pixels that formed words that meant everything.

From up here I had a view of the carnival, too. I snapped a picture. Mine was farther out, a sprinkle of rainbow glitter. I sent it without a message. His reply, almost instantaneous, was what I'd expected, and I smiled.

 _Wish I was there_ , he said.

 _Me too_ , I answered.

I pressed the phone to my chest, a warm rectangle of light irradiating my bones. I wasn't sitting there alone. I wasn't alone anymore.

Something made me check the screen again. I'd read it fast, teary-eyed. It was different when I read it the second time. What he'd actually written was, _Wish you were here_.


	6. Chapter 6

I met Law on Monday morning outside calc with a tuna salad rice ball.

"Olive branch." I said.

To my surprise, he actually took it.

On impulse, I hugged him. He was ungodly tall and his body rigid in my arms. Not even two seconds after I began patting him down, feeling the muscles he hid beneath crisp shirts and fine hoodies, and he shoved me away.

Good old Law.

"Speaking of Olives, Olive is having a party." Was that his feeble attempt at inviting me to go? Did he want to go? With me?

"Really? You going?"

"No," He said brushing past me. " _We're_ going."

 **~·~**

I walked into Film Studies later that morning feeling more in balance with the universe than I had in a long time. Which meant, of course, that the universe had to swing a big rusty wrench straight into my face.

He wasn't there. A sub sat at his desk.

"Where's Mr. Donquixote?" I said.

"He's not here." Law decided to state the obvious.

The sub shrugged. "His instructions say you can use this period to work on your semester project."

Law and I slipped out after she took attendance.

"This is fucking weird." I muttered.

"Why?"

Because he drove me home Friday. Because we made out in his car, in the rain. Because he said he thought of doing terrible things to me in his head.

"I don't know. He didn't seem sick last week."

"Mysterious illnesses often strike the elderly."

I took a swipe at Law but he easily (too easily for my liking) dodged.

"Are you going to spend the whole day pining for him?"

Yes. "I've got to get something from my locker."

"I'll be in the lab." He said before turning off down the hallway.

 **~·~**

 _Where are you?_ I texted Mr. Donquixote when I was alone at my locker. I waited for a reply. Five minutes. Ten. Then I sighed, and tossed it in, and buried myself in schoolwork.

He finally responded that afternoon. _Court date. Nothing major_.

I didn't reply.

A minute later, he added, _I miss you_.

I stood at my locker as kids milled around me and felt like I was on a movie set, surrounded by extras. Their lives were so small, so simple. So scripted. No one had a secret life like this. No one was texting the teacher they'd fucked, the teacher they were planning to fuck again.

 _I want to see you,_ I said.

I expected a brush-off. I did not expect him to say, _Can you meet me outside school?_

 _Yes._ God, yes. _Where?_

He gave me an address not far away for a pickup.

 _And then where?_ I said.

 _Anywhere you want._

 **~·~**

I sat on an old cold case outside a derelict gas station half a mile from school. The sun banged of chrome pumps scabbed with rust, ricocheting into my eyes in bright bullets. Heat baked up from the cracked concrete. A tin sign poked with BB holes creaked mysteriously, no breeze touching it. I reclined in a cool bath of shadow, my body relaxed, my mind going a million miles an hour.

He pulled up like a movie star, one arm propped on the headrest, mirrored aviators flashing.

I got in. The seat leather scorched my legs.

We didn't speak. He took his sunglasses off. His eyes were tender and soft beneath. He wore a pinstriped shirt and tie with jeans, sleeves rolled up. Sun gilded the top of his hair in a holy spotlight, his hair a golden wind-tossed miracle to my eyes.

We didn't kiss.

Our hands met on the scalding seat between us. I breathed fast. I hadn't been this scared since I got into that roller-coaster car by myself. This was the same thing, really-getting on a ride that might destroy us.

Worst-case scenario: He loses his job, I get kicked out of school.

Best-case scenario:-

I don't know. What is the best-case scenario? Sneaking around, peering out of the curtains? Lying to everyone we know?

This is where my life forked. I could only go one way; in the other Gwyneth Paltrow plays my alternate self like in Sliding Doors, ending up miserable or happy. That was the question.

Which one was she? Which one was I?

I knew which one I was. The fearless one.

I squeezed his hand.

The silence between us rang. It made everything so clear. I saw my thoughts reflected in his face, the trepidation fighting with a very simple, very biological need. He looked at all of me, my fresh teenage skin, my adult certainty, my old soul. No one had ever looked at me so completely. No one had ever seen me as such a whole, rounded person.

Yes, I thought. This is the road I want.

He squeezed my hand back, then took the wheel.

 **~·~**

It's amazing how you can communicate without words. We drove onto the highway, through neat green rows of soybeans raking to the blue horizon. My window was down, hair lashing at my face. The air smelled chemical with a tang of sickly-sweet fermentation. A blade of sunlight lay across my legs, making my skin glow.

I glanced at Mr. Donquixote. His look made something deep in me ache. I held on to the feeling, letting it open inside of me, blossoming, filling me from toes to fingertips with a tension somewhere between hunger and pain. By habit, I put my thumbnail between my front teeth. I hadn't meant it seductively, but Mr. Donquixote stared, a smile flitting around the edges of his mouth.

Great job, Lolita. Now you just need some heart-shaped sunglasses.

I felt his eyes on me, hot as the sunlight. I knew he was watching my every move. I tilted my head back, eyes half-closing, the wind playing over my face. My heart beat a slow, bluesy rhythm. It felt like acting, like being onstage, every camera on me, bewitched.

The car slowed.

We both looked at the motel sign, then each other.

He turned.

Crunching gravel. Parking space. Engine off, ticking. Heat swarmed into the silence, becoming almost a sound, a high locust whine buzzing against my skin.

I heard him breathing. He wasn't quite looking at me, his gaze landing somewhere on the dashboard.

We knew what we were doing, Your Honor.

He put his sunglasses back on and popped the glove box, handing me a second pair. I laughed softly. Like this would hide anything.

Maybe it wasn't for other people. Maybe it was for us.

It was a lot easier to face him without seeing his eyes. My reflection: a girl without fear, her lips slightly upturned, knowing.

He got out and headed for the registration office.

Panic attack.

I flipped down the sun visor, clawed my hopeless hair. What had I eaten before I last brushed my teeth that morning? What planet had I been on? No memory of anything between waking and the moment I got into his car. I couldn't sit comfortably in my own skin. Every tendon was a violin string stretched taught, dying to sing out at the faintest touch. What if it was different? What if I'd ruined it by lying, leaving? God, what the hell could he possibly see in a screwed-up seventeen year old? How screwed up must he be to get tangled in my life?

Footsteps on gravel.

I slapped the visor up.

No more thinking.

I opened my door, slammed it shut loudly, defiantly. My senses focused on small things: the pumice scrape of his shoes, a splash of sun on a steel bumper. He opened 112 and went in first. I followed, closing the door behind me.

Dim inside, afternoon light straining through muslin curtains. There were heavy drapes to either side of the window that we didn't touch. I had impressions of square silhouettes in the murk but all I really saw was him. Taking his sunglasses off, setting them on the bureau. Moving toward me. Taking my sunglasses off, too. I blinked at the dust suspended in the slice of sunlight.

I didn't realize I wasn't going to step further into the room for a while.

Mr. Donquixote put his hand under my jaw, raising my face. My body pressed against the cool metal of the door. I ached like I'd been asleep or watching a long movie and needed to be pulled, stretched, used. It made my face sullen, made his eyes narrow. We looked at each other with that resentment you feel when you want something so much it's causing you pain, so much you start to hate it a little. There was a whiff of gasoline and the city on him and that smokiness I'd become addicted to. I put my hand on the knot of his tie. His mouth opened, as if I'd touched some live part of him.

Our lips met.

What happened felt more like chemistry than a kiss. Pure liquid heat on my lips, dissolving into me, trailing a hot line down my chest and pooling in my stomach. My heels rose off the floor. All of me rose, unanchored, held down only by his weight pressing me to the chilly slab of the door. We kissed as we could not have done until now-like lovers. He tilted my head, slid his tongue into my mouth, not urgent or hurried but in a way that made me feel the inevitability of this. The hand on my jaw moved over my chest, my belly, to the button of my shorts.

I'd had some practice with unknotting ties.

When I tugged it free he pulled back, those lips of his slanting in a half smile. This made it easier to unbutton his shirt. He watched me, letting me have my way with him. Raised his arms obediently when I rolled up his undershirt. I wanted to press it to my face, smother myself with it like ether. But he took my wrists and pinned them above my head and something trembled in me, somewhere between blood cells and neurons, a liminal space where I wasn't quite mind or body. God, he was going to fuck me right here, against the door.

His hands let go and mine stayed raised, obedient. He unbuttoned my shorts, knelt to take them off. Warm breath sighed between my thighs, making me feel my own wetness. Large, careful fingers slid beneath my underwear, pulling, fingertips running down my legs. I bit my lip so hard I tasted sweet copper. He kissed my hip, moving along the soft crease of my thigh, moving lower as his hands spread my legs open. I couldn't. I couldn't anymore. I thrust my fingers into his hair and pulled his head back, making him look up at me.

My face said it all.

He stood, unzipping himself, taking the condom from his back pocket as I pulled him out of his jeans. His dick felt huge and burning hot in my hand. I slid my palm around the base and he froze, the muscles of his chest chiseled against his skin, unmoving. My fingers stroked the fine silk over that hardness, pumping slightly in my hand. Just touching it made me curl up, everything in me going super tight. He put the condom on himself. Lifted me suddenly under the knees, making me grab him for balance. Then it was only my spine against the door and his dick thrusting inside of me, and I lost all breath, all function, all everything. For an endless moment all I felt was penetration. Slow and hard. Slow and deep. He made sure I felt every single thrust. I was hard inside, too, my body coiled and tense, and the first few moments were so poignant it was almost painful. Then the rhythm took over, and the world began to fade back in. My bare thighs rubbing against his. The way his abs flexed, the muscle rolling, the little trail of bronze hair he pressed against my navel. The viperous motion of his body as he fucked me. He held me a few inches above him and raised his face, watching mine without kissing me. The way we looked at each other was more intimate than a kiss could have been. I saw his pupils dilating like pulsing black hearts. I saw every tremor of strain and pleasure the went through him. I watched what I did to him, how vulnerable he became as he gave himself to me, fucking me but also being fucked himself, that slightly lost, boyish look coming into his face as he got closer and closer. A fire built up in me, leaping from cell to cell, setting my body slowly alight, but I made myself keep my eyes open and watch him. His eyes closed, his fingers dug into the backs of my legs. His dick was so hard and thick inside me that all I felt was a sweet fullness in my core. Every time he sank in completely and compressed my clit, a bolt of pure electricity shot up through my belly. My eyes were open wide when the tension in me changed from resistance to surrender, and I started to gasp uncontrollably, and didn't tell him I was coming, but he knew. The fingers clenching my legs tightened like claws. I came so fast and hard it was like a flash of sheet lightning, a blinding white bliss, there one second and gone the next, and I gaped at the shadowy room, dazed. He kept going for a few more seconds, groaning, thrusting hard one last time then rocking through the aftershock, settling against me, our weight easing limply against the door.

His head rested in the crook of my shoulder. I ran a hand over his back, light, unsure of myself yet, of this closeness. It was like an awful pounding clock had finally stopped ticking. The silence in the room was peaceful, melancholy. I breathed in the smell of him. Of us. My sweat on his body, my wetness on his jeans. I wanted to pause this moment and linger in it, looking around, memorizing.

He pulled out gingerly but didn't let me down. His arms tightened. He carried me to the bed.

My breath fluttered in my lungs.

He laid me down and lowered himself beside me, facing the ceiling. We reached for each other at the same moment, our hands linking in the small gulf between us. Oh my god, I thought. Just that. A pleasant daze. My body was full of sunlight. No blood, just liquid blue sky.

I didn't know how much time had passed when his head turned to me. I looked over, everything was golden and graceful.

"Hi." He said, soft and low.

Something lit up in me like a candle. I propped myself on an elbow, swung my leg across him and crouched over his body. "Hi." I said.

It was the first time we'd spoken since Friday.

 **~·~**

For a long time he held me atop him, looking at me. I kissed him but he broke it after a second. When I tried to get up, he pulled me back.

"Let me look at you," He said. "Before your guard comes up."

So I let him look.

At first I was nervous, my eyes flickering away, suddenly aware that I wore nothing below the waist. I tucked my hair behind my ear and it immediately tumbled back into my face.

Then I eyed him askance. There was nothing in his expression but curiosity, so innocent it almost seemed childish. My anxiety melted. A slow, small smile took over me. Cocky, not shy. The way I'd smiled at the carnival. I owned every part of my me, the nudity, the just-had-sex hair, every mistake I'd ever made, and wrapped myself in it.

Corazon touched my cheek and pulled me closer against him. My hair fell around us, enclosing us in a dark veil. I ran my palm over his chest, the smooth=carved muscle, the dense, solid bones. I let my hand move lower to the silky down of his belly. God, I thought. You are such a fucking _man_. His hands moved over me, outlining the slimness of my arms, my hips, stopping on my bare ass, his fingers pressing into my skin. The innocent look was gone.

"Did you see her?" I said

Movement beneath his bangs.

"The real me."

"She's right here." He said, and kissed me.

The afternoon became a blur of this: of kissing him, and being held, and not leaving that bed. He stepped into the bathroom to clean himself up and brought me back my underwear. I put them back on but took my shirt off, and we spooned, his hands all over me. We talked as much as we kissed.

"Tell me everything about you." He said. "What's your favourite movie?"

"Oh my god, you can _not_ ask me that."

"Why?"

I sat up, giving him a horrified look. "First of all, because I want to impress you. Second, because it changes on a daily basis."

"You have one, you just don't want to tell me. I'll tell you mine."

My lip curled with hostility.

He laughed. "Say it together, on three. Ready?"

"No," I shrieked.

"One, two, three. _Casablanca_."

" _Jurassic Park_."

He broke out into a huge grin.

I flopped face-first into the bed. "I'm going to die."

"A modern classic." He said, tickling my heel. "I remember seeing it in the theater and thinking, 'Someday CG will be as real as real life.' My favourite scene was when the girl-"

"If you start quoting," I said into the mattress, " I will actually kill myself."

He laughed again. His laugh was laugh. Not mocking like Law's but giddy, conspiratorial. I glanced at him over my shoulder.

"Tell me everything about you."

His laughter faded, but the smile stayed. He lay beside me, his fingertips tracing the curves of my back. "What do you want to know?"

"How old are you?"

"28."

I felt a little less...guilty knowing that he was younger than what I had thought. He was 11 when I was born. No biggie, Law.

"Where did you go to college?"

"Northwestern."

"You from upstate?"

"Just outside."

"Snob, they always say they're 'just outside,' like towns don't have names up there."

"It's true. They don't. Very confusing for mail carriers."

He slid a finger under my bra strap and followed it up over my wing bone, cresting my shoulder.

"Why-," I started.

"My turn." His finger moved slowly toward my breast. "Why did you talk your way into my class?"

Fate, I wanted to say. Kismet. It was in the script.

"They actually screwed my registration up. I was going for _Art_." I took a deep breath.

"Really? You want to go to an art school?"

"Well, I was," Another deep breath. "But I've changed my mind."

His hand stopped and he sat up a little.

"I want to go to film school."

"Have you thought about any film schools?"

"I don't know yet. I mean, I have my top choices, obviously, but I'm trying to be realistic. Hopefully somewhere good. I'm kind of torn between whether to focus on indie or commercial film. Commercial is safer, I think, because I'll get a broad view of how the whole process works. But focusing on commercial shit can turn you into a philistine who churns out garbage, so maybe I should focus on indie stuff. On story telling, and art. But then maybe I'll be really naive when it actually comes to doing the work. I don't know."

I was rambling. I glanced back at him. He had a slightly dazed look on his face.

"You're serious about this." He said.

I gave a half shrug. "Well, yeah."

"What do you want to do? Jobwise."

"I'll take what I can get. I'd love to be a PA, get a general sense of how it all fits together. Because someday, I'm going to direct."

It was as if I'd said something enchanting, romantic. His eyes sparkled.

"You're a creator."

I thought about that. It seemed too lofty for me. All I did was watch a lot of movies and daydream. But he'd given me an opportunity, one I hadn't even really acknowledged because I'd been so obsessed with him: our semester project. I could actually _make_ something. If it turned out halfway decent, maybe I could include it on my college applications.

"I don't know what I am yet." I said.

An electric moment between us, balanced between honesty and fear. Because I was young. Maybe I had more drive than most kids my age, but I was still a "kid my age." And you know that, Mr. Donquixote, I thought. That's part of what this is between us-the thrill of taboo. Teacher and student.

"If you're going to film school," He said. " There's something I need to give you."

My heart skipped a beat. "What?"

"An education."

 **~·~**

The first thing he taught me was how to make love.

Before you laugh, know that I always hated that phrase. It sounded so corny, so old. Hippies made love. People my mother's age, though I preferred to believe I was an immaculate conception.

People my age hooked up, fucked, had sex. We didn't attach frilly ideas of oneness and eternity to a basic biological act. Most of us were from single-parent homes. Those who weren't wished they were when their parents screamed and beat the shit out of each other. We grew up sexualized, from toddler beauty pageants to the constant reminder that adults were waiting to lure us into vans with candy. Their invention of the internet gave us a platform for the distribution of amateur porn.

That was a lot of conditioning to break through.

 **~·~**

The afternoon light got that long slant to it, slowly folding into dusk. Half a day had passed since I'd eaten and I barely felt hungry. I didn't want to stop this thing, lying on a motel bed with this beautiful man, our hot skin always in contact, never breaking apart. He sat up and I sat in his lap, facing him, my legs wrapped around the long lean muscle of his back. I rubbed my palm against his cheek. He wore a sleepy, smoldering look, his lower lip jutting out, and it completely worked on me. If he'd asked me to do anything right then, I would have.I kissed that sulky lip. I couldn't tell the taste of his mouth from mine anymore. Only warmth, softness, pressure.

"I want to see you." He said quietly. "All of you."

I breathed quicker. Disentangled myself from him, my eyes locked on his, and stood. I felt like I was in a trance. I'd undress for other men, and I wasn't wearing much right now to begin with, but this felt different. He wasn't just going to see my body. He was going to see _me_. In the way I undressed, the way I stood there under his gaze, the way I wore my skin.

He moved to the edge of the bed.

I unhooked my bra, slipped it off one shoulder. Let it fall to the floor with cool disregard.

That was the easy part.

I was breathing hard now.

His eyes moved over me but hovered mostly on my face. That was almost worse. Who am I without this? I thought. Without the seduction I wear like armor, without my bravado and cocksure confidence? Am I really just a little girl under it all?

I tucked my thumbs into my underwear.

And I thought of myself getting into the front of that deathtrap roller-coaster all alone. Of swinging out from the water tower. Of getting into my teacher's car.

I slipped my underwear down until it fell. Then stepped out with one foot and kicked it away with the other. I never broke eye contact.

Corazon's lips parted in awe.

I'd like to thank the Academy.

"Now you." I said. He stood smoothly. His silhouette blocked out the slivers of sun filtering through the curtain. It limned the edges of him, a bronze arc of light on his shoulder, the tips of his hair illuminating into white blonde. His jeans clung tightly and he had to strip them off-though he did without ease, falling back onto the bed. I was beginning to understand that he was clumsy but it wasn't enough to dampen the sizzle in the air. He was hard again, totally hard, his briefs doing nothing to hide it. He slipped them off. My eyes didn't know where to stop. Apparently my hands didn't know either because they were all over him, following the cascading slabs of his ribs, his abs, the smooth chevron of muscle that led to the hard dick I took and wrapped in my fingers. His hands came down on my shoulders, heavily. His breath was heavy, too.

He leaned on me, eyes closed.

"I want you like this." I said.

He looked like he was drugged. I pushed him onto the bed. My knees fit to either side of his waist. We sat face-to-face again, but without any clothes between us. I was higher than him and he kissed my breasts, his dick stiff against my thigh. The heat of it drove me crazy, my blood percolating to strike.

If he didn't fuck me, I was going to force him.

He looked up. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." I said, my fingernails carving into his back.

I could have forced him. I had leverage. But I wanted him to do it, and so I let him take his sweet, torturous time, teasing my nipples with his teeth, sliding the whole length of himself between my thighs, pushing lightly, agonizingly, right against the focal point of that horrible ache in me. At first it was an insane test of willpower. I hit my limit again and again, somehow always starting over, finding a new reserve of patience. Then I realized that he was going to test my patience until it stopped being patience. Until I stopping waiting to be fucked and just experienced this. I made myself let go, made my muscles unravel. Draped my arms languidly around his neck. Looked at his face without thinking anything but how light it made my heart feel, as if pumped full of helium. And when I started to zone out and he slipped inside of me, I made myself stay relaxed. I let him penetrate me so gradually there was never a moment when it felt like he was finally fucking me. It all kind of blended together, fluidly, dreamily. His arms circled my back, holding me against the soft rocking of his body. This was different. This wasn't being fucked. This was something happening to my entire self, not just the useful parts. There was so little tension in me I didn't think I could come, until a warmth spreading from my hips and belly became hotter and hotter, and I looked up at the ceiling, gasping like I was suffocating for air, saying, "Come inside me, please, come inside me." That was it. No holding back. The heat in me detonated in a gentle nuclear burst, annihilating all sensation with soft light. IT came on slowly and faded slowly, leaving me tingling, buzzed. Corazon kept going a little longer, and then he slowed, and stopped. He was still hard.

"You didn't," I said drowsily.

He kissed me. I let it go on for a moment and then leaned back, clear-eyed. "Why?"

"I wanted it to be just for you."

It was as if he spoke in Greek. I stared at him.

And something very strange happened in my brain.

I rolled away and sat on the edge of the bed, curling my arms around myself. My hand clamped instinctively over my mouth. The room was dark now, its shadows tinted the colour of rust and old blood by the parking lot lights.

"Remy?"

The shadows swam in my eyes. I squeezed them shut. Corazon laid a hand on my back. "Why are you crying?" He whispered.

"I'm not." I said, and sniffled. Perfect.

His hand stroked tentatively. "Did I hurt you?"

"No," I laughed at myself, bitter. "I'm just a fucking head case."

"Why are you crying?" He asked again.

"Because no one's ever done that for before."

He swept my hair out of my face, tucking it behind my ear. "Done what?"

I don't think I was really crying about this. I think it was a cumulative effect, all the tension and anxiety of the past few weeks culminating in this perfect day, this perfect happiness. It was relief, not sadness. But he'd been the trigger, and I guess I owed him an answer.

"Done it for me," I said. "Just for me."

His arms were around me then, drawing me to his chest. He said something soothing, but it was merely sound. All I really heard was the deep submarine thump of his heart.

 **~·~**

When I finally stepped outside it felt like walking into a different world. A million new roads stretched before me that I'd never seen before. We put our sunglasses back on in the car, grinning at each other. He took his off when he almost hit a streetlight. I laughed and said maybe he should let me drive, and surprisingly, he did. It felt both wrong and amazing to be driving my teacher's car. I stopped at McDonald's and ordered fried and a vanilla shakes, parking in an empty lot under the stars. Corazon said he'd make a special syllabus to prep me for film school.

"Private tutoring?" I said, dipping a fry in my shake. "How scandalous."

He smiled, but after a moment his eyes went distant.

"How is it going to be tomorrow?" I said.

"I don't know. I was hoping to learn magic and freeze time."

I gestured with my fry. "I'll be discreet. No one will know. I won't risk your job."

He looked at me. "It's not just about me. In fact, it's less about me than it is about you."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I won't risk your future, or your happiness, or your sanity."

"Good thing I only have one of those."

"I'm serious," He frowned. "Which on do you have?"

"Happiness." I said, and leaned over and kissed him. Vanilla and salt.

He looked at me a long time when I pulled away. It wasn't until later that I realized he'd hoped I'd say _future_. That's how you know someone loves you. When they want you to be happy even in the part of your life they'll never see. But right then I was too stuck in the moment, in the visceral pleasure of it all.

"Let's figure out our battle plan, comrade." I said.

 **~·~**

I didn't get home till midnight, and getting out of that car was harder than it had ever been. I sat there until I finished every last fry. I was ravenous, insatiable, I'd done nothing but fuck him all day and wanted to do nothing else for the rest of the week. Month. Life. When he drove away I took a picture of the receding taillights, and after his car was gone I stood there holding the photo up to the street, pretending he was still there. What is this feeling? I wondered. What is this hunger that grows worse and worse the more I feed it?

They'd come up with a name for it a long time ago. But you already know what it's called, don't you?


	7. Chapter 7

Law had texted me.

"Where were you yesterday?" He said. "I texted you."

I looked at him philosophically, brandishing a piece of toast I had taken to-go. "Where is anyone, really? In a quantum sense, I was everywhere and nowhere."

"Are you high?"

I smiled.

"You are obligated to tell me." He said, tone unwilling to budge from the subject.

"I'm high on life. Take all you want. It's free."

His eyes narrowed. "Just the other night you were leaping off water towers-" He stopped and a cheeky smirk blossomed across his face. "You got laid."

I grinned, suggestively.

"Was it an older man?"

"What is age, really?" I said and Law instantly checked out of the conversation.

Before we went to our first period class, I grabbed his arm.

"I want to start working seriously on our movie."

" _I_ have. Last time I checked, _you_ were the one running off trying to get your fix like you were some nympho-"

"Okay, okay, sorry," I said. "I want to take it seriously."

He looked down at me skeptically, his eyes dark. "Fine."

"Cool, I'll come over to your place-"

"No. Absolutely not."

"What? Where else would we go?"

"Yours will do."

"No. My place is off limits." I said, firmly. I waited.

His face changed, his sharp features shifting beneath his smooth light, olive skin, and I didn't need him to verbally announce it.

His place it was.

 **~·~**

I saw Mr. Donquixote completely by accident. I was walking between classes on the first floor when we spotted each other in the hall. We both stopped. It was as if the lights dimmed on the river of bodies streaming around us, and we were the only two people left in full colour. Fiery, radiant colour, singeing the screen. All noise and motion blurred away. It felt like a camera circled us, capturing this movie-perfect moment. I started forward again and so did he. We passed each other slowly. We didn't stop or speak. But our arms brushed, and for half a second our fingers curled together, then slipped free, like a secret handshake.

 **~·~**

Leaves shook out of the trees and fluttered around me in gold and green flakes of summer. I rode slowly beside Law, pushing the bike with my feet. The soft clack of the spokes, the groggy drone of bees and locusts, the honey-thick sunlight drizzling over us-I was in love with the world today. A big dumb smile climbed onto my face every time my mind drifted. The air tasted like sherry, sweet and light, a pleasant sting on my tongue.

Law looked up from his phone for the first time since we left school, but didn't deflate my good mood.

We went into town, one or two small towers of glass and metal erected here and there. Law showed me round the back of one building, eight stories high, to where an old bike rack was and I chained my bike. We walked back around to the front of the building, through the glass, double doors and into a large foyer. He casually padded toward the hive of mail boxes on the left wall before signalling me to follow him. We took the elevator up to the fifth floor, the cool slabs of metal sliding in on itself to open out to a long hall, numbered doors stretching down on either side. We stopped at 42.

As soon as I walked through the door, I knew it was Law's home.

Everything was sleek, no colours, just blacks, whites, grays and silvers. There was a slight acidic burn in the air, like cleanliness, sanitiser. A white, pristine rug lay on dark, polished oak floors. A sleek, L shaped lounge sat in the living area, in front of a contemporary gas fireplace, above that, a thirty-two inch flat screen TV. There were no photos, not a single thing that could've been family orientated in sight.

It could have been a bachelor's apartment.

"Law, are your parent rich?" I asked, gawking into his kitchen.

He ignored me.

I grew curious about his family.

His room was simple. A queen sized bed draped with a black quilt, a metal desk with laptop and lamp adorning it. There was a hefty looking bookshelf pushed up against the left wall of his room, shelves lined with books I could only dream of trying to read.

"What, no baked cookies?" I said, as he slung his bag under the desk. He took to the desk chair at the desk, while I was left standing there.

"We're not here to eat. Sit down." He ordered. I looked around the room before sitting on the edge of his bed awkwardly.

"Who do you live with?" I asked.

He looked at me like I was prying. Was I?

"My 'brother.' And we're not here for that either." Brother? Wait, he definitely said it with quotation marks. There was a story behind it, I was sure, but he was right, we didn't come here for cookies or let's-reveal-our-deepest-secrets time.

"So," I said, accentuating the vowels. "What is our film about, Monsieur Auteur?"

"I've been shooting B-roll. I haven't decided on a subject yet."

"A...docufiction?"

"A Cinéma vérité," He said with finesse. "With narrative injected into it."

I looked at him, slightly astounded. Since when was he into films?

"I didn't think you were into films," I said, almost accusingly. "I thought you were all over that biology stuff."

Law flipped his laptop open, punched in a password. "I'm not. And I am."

My head cocked to the side of its own volition. "What?"

"We'll never get this done." He sighed, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose while his long legs stretched out.

A memory leapt to the front of my mind, unbidden. Corazon and I in the motel, in each other's arms, moving together slowly, hypnotically. Jesus. I blushed furiously, but said, "When you don't force it, sometimes amazing things happen."

Law looked at me skeptically again, but I could see something flicker behind his eyes, like he was trying to figure out the meaning of something.

Law's phone skittered across the desk as it vibrated.

We both looked at it.

The name "Kid" lit brightly on the screen.

He didn't touch it.

"Not gonna get that?" I said, cocking an eyebrow, the corners of my lips twitching.

The phone settled after a few seconds, the screen light fading until it blacked out. Law plucked the phone from the desk and tossed it in one of the side drawers.

Note to self: Kid may be an off-limits topic.

Note to self: Ask who Kid is.

I'm obliged to know.

He turned back to the laptop and pulled up a file. I got up and stood beside him. "Is this your B-roll?"

He nodded.

He had a metric shit ton. Half from summer:oceans of wheat rippling in the wind, trains silhouetted against bloody sunsets, even the carnival, eerily deserted in the rain. The rest was from the school year: a swarm of legs, a fist fight we'd seen.

And me.

I was in most of those shots. Staring out windows longingly or giving him my lunatic grin. Sitting in class listening to Mr. Donquixote. In every single on of them my yearning was crystal clear. It burned in me like fever, made my skin glow palely, my eyes blaze, a beautiful madness. I stared at myself, breathless. I wasn't hiding anything.

It was all there in plain sight.

"Is this how you see me?" I said, almost whispering. "As an attention whore?"

"Not necessarily."

"Then why am I in all of these?"

"Because you're the only interesting person here."

I glanced at him. "You can't do much with this except make a film about me."

He eyed me sideways, too. "I fail to see your point."

"I want to _make_ something, Law. I don't want to be objectified as some pretty face." My words came out harsh and sibilant, like steam. I hadn't meant to sound so angry.

"Don't be so vain. No one said we were. I'm simply finding different...perspectives." He looked up at me. I let out a huff.

"Okay," I said. "Country heartland. What darkness lurks inside this seemingly pastoral town?"

"Incest." He said. I laughed.

"Cliche," I said. "But probably."

We brainstormed for a few hours before watching some movies for inspiration. Unsurprisingly, Law showed me an old eighties classic called Blue Velvet. Really, he paused on the severed ear and explained, in gruesome detail, just how he would have done it. Funnily enough, he spoke in a clinical sense, rather than some sick psychopath. After we had watched that, he slid the laptop onto my lap and retrieved his phone from the drawer and disappeared down the hall. I took the opportunity to hook my own up to his laptop to charge and met him out in his kitchen. He stood at the open fridge, fingers tapping at the screen of his phone. He tucked the phone into his pocket and tossed me a bottle of chilled water.

"Thanks." I said, setting the bottle down on the counter. "Where's the bathroom?"

"Down there, to the left."

On my way back to the room I snatched up the water.

"Someone is calling you." He said as he lowered into the chair.

"Who?" I asked, after taking a sip, and sat the bottle down beside the bed.

"C."

I grabbed my phone. "I need to take this outside."

"Who's C?"

"Hi Dad," I said exaggeratedly when I answered. "Just a sec."

I could practically hear Corazon's eyebrows go up with a little comic book noise. _Fwip_. I raced through the living room and flung open the front door.

"Hi," I said, leaning back against the wall. "Sorry about that."

"'Dad'?"

"Thought you would appreciate the Freudian irony."

He laughed softly. His voice, slightly metallic, ran down through my bones and settled warmly in my chest, like bourbon. "I got stuck with a shit-ton of paper work, and I can't stop thinking about you."

You read things in romance novels like _He made me melt,_ knowing this is physically impossible. Girls are not pats of butter. Yet my body was doing a damned fine impression of I Can't Believe It's Not Girl, dissolving against the side of the wall.

"So you called to torture me?"

"I know it's late, but I want to see you."

My eyes widened. "Do we have time for that?"

He laughed again, a little guiltily. "I actually just want to see you. Even if it's only for a minute."

"Yes." I said.

"Yes what?"

"Yes, it's late. And yes, I want to see you."

I pictured him smiling. "Can you meet me?"

Law was transfixed to his own device. I wondered if he was texting that Kid person.

When he finally noticed my return he made a grin so wide he looked like that Cheshire cat, his eyes steady, unwavering, _knowing_. My heart jumped into my throat.

"What?"

"It's getting late." His gaze felt like that tungsten lamp you see in the interrogation rooms in the movies, burning and melting my face to see the truth hidden deep inside of me. Bringing light to whatever darkness there was.

"Mhm," I hummed, voice unwittingly nervous. I picked my bag up, slung it over my shoulder. "Better get going."

That was easy. I think. At least I didn't even have to try and convince him not to walk me him.

 **~·~**

I stopped at home to brush my teeth and change clothes, because I'm not above vanity. The lights were off, Mom's van gone. I wish she'd never come back.

When I biked out to the water tower he was already waiting. I hopped off and let my bike ride on without me and ran to him. He pulled me down on a blanket he'd spread on the grass. I ended up atop him, my hair in both our faces. He held me, his arms coiling and relaxing, again and again, one hand buried in my hair at the base of my skull. Crickets made a creaking heartbeat around us. Cool aloe musk rose from the grass.

"I've been thinking about this all day." He whispered.

I brushed my cheek against his. The earth sank beneath us, pressed by the weight of the whole universe above. How could it set us up like this, every planet precisely aligned, if it didn't mean for us to collide? His heart crashed against mine, fierce and steady.

I pushed up on my palms. "You've done something to me." My voice was quiet, too, a ribbon of breath threading into the breeze that stirred my hair. " I feel like I'm waking from a long dream and everything is so much more beautiful than I remembered."

His eyes were pale and bright in the starlight. The hand in my hair pulled me into him.

I kissed my teacher in the shadow of the water tower, beneath the stars.

 **~·~**

I've been pretty honest so far, haven't I? So I'll admit it: it wasn't innocent, blind love. His age drew me to him in the first place; now it was his being my teacher that gave me a wild, terrified thrill every time we touched, infusing me with adrenaline, making my skin prickle. The danger was an electrode buried in my brain, lighting up my most primal fear and pleasure circuits. There was more to it, of course. Something was unfolding in me that had never happened before. But I wasn't kidding myself.

The forbiddenness was part of it.

 **~·~**

I rolled onto my back and stared up at the sky. We propped up our knees side by side. A tiny cut of light opened in the star-freckled face of night, a shooting star. I raised my hand and closed a fist over it. When I opened my fingers, it was gone. Part of me now. _You're a creator_. Law had seen the person he thought I was, some obsessive, narcissistic teenager. Corazon saw both who I was and who I wanted to be.

"Why did you want to become a teacher?" I said.

He sat up, leaning on his elbow. "There are two types of teachers. The first kind always wanted to be teachers. They train for it. They're passionate, caring, good people." I could hear the smile in his voice, bittersweet. "The second kind wanted to be something else, but couldn't. Crowded field, not good enough, not driven enough. Whatever. But they have a lot of specialized knowledge, so instead of letting it rot, they become teachers."

"Which kind are you?"

"The third kind."

"Like _Close Encounters of?_ "

He frowned. "The kind that doesn't know how he got here or where he's going. I was on my way somewhere else, but a detour came up."

I pulled out my phone. "Where were you going?"

He turned his head, his eyes searching the milky way above. "Are you filming me?"

"I want to document this moment."

He chuckled in defeat, or was it surrender?

"There's no story, really."

"There is. And this is your audition."

"For what?"

"The role of my corrupt teacher. Of the third kind."

He gave me an electric look. Even through the cheap phone camera it made my nerves tingle, lightning lacing up my arms. Our gazes met above the screen.

"I thought I already had the part."

"What? We didn't even get to the casting couch."

His eyes crinkled, his face folding into embarrassed laughter. "You're a predator. I'm pretty sure you're the one corrupting me."

I sat behind my phone, relishing this. My power over him. The strange dynamic of me as the observer, him the observed.

"Why don't you put that away?" He said.

"Why?"

"So you can corrupt me."

I put it away.

"You owe me that story." I said.

He tilted my face. Kissed me lightly on the mouth, then along my jaw, following to my ear. My eyes half-shut, drifting to the carnival lights in the distance. The hot breath in my ear was unbearable, a chemical pulse straight to my spine.

Something rumbled out on the road.

We stiffened, listening. A car going past.

"Kids come here." I whispered, thinking of Law.

Corazon took my hands and pulled me to my feet. Attempted to scoop up the blanket and ending up getting himself tangled in it, his lanky legs pointed out at awkward angles. I laughed, a hearty one, before helping him. I walked my bike toward his car on the shoulder.

"I can't last until Friday." I said. "I need to see you."

He gave a regretful wince, but it had become much less regretful lately, more longing.

"Rent another room," I said. "At a different motel. I'll pay."

"You don't have to do that."

"I want to. This is as much mine as it is yours."

We stared at each other over my bike. Far down the road, two red snake eyes winked in the darkness.

"Okay." His voice was a little strange. "When should I pick you up?"

"As soon as the bell rings."

He reached over and lifted my face and kissed me, so intensely I let the bike fall against him. This was an old-time, black-and-white-movie kiss, with the orchestra swelling in my chest, hot tungsten lamps carving out our shadows. My bones turned to air, nothing holding me up but the fierceness of my desire. God, I just wanted to get into that car with him. Forget this whole fucked-up life and disappear somewhere together. I had to push him away, fight for my breath. Too much. I gave him an agonized look. When he spoke, his voice was guttural.

"I can't hold on to you. You're like that shooting star. Just a trail of fire in my hands."

And he did it. He put the first fine, hairline crack in the ruby of my heart.


End file.
